Monsters make bad pets
by Snoara
Summary: A little something that lurks in the deep dark sea. A series of very, very short chapters!
1. Time

There were no timepieces down at the bottom of the sea. No sun dials, no sand trapped inside delicate glass, no little gears working on counting seconds and minutes. It was events of life that dictated time's passage where time didn't really matter that much.

"Last I hunted", "before the Whale died" or "two sleeps ago" were common to use if two creatures came to talking terms. Everything measured their own time and thus could things be quite confusing for the other party to comprehend, but because there was no other way to express the when, no one ever questioned it.

"After the great storm" was how she constantly referred to the events.

After the great storm was when she found a big human holding a little human. The big one was lethally injured, she figured, because the taste of blood was so thick in the water that even the storm had trouble dissolving it. Not too far from them were two ships sinking with many more humans, small and big and slight and wide, all kinds of what she saw. It was an easy feast and of course she took advantage of it, but this human here seemed to still have some life in it. Risk of injury was a real thing and would spell disaster. She would not take it.

Then a great wave claimed the flailing human and it's little human, tossing them up and out of her reach on what she knew as The Cliff.


	2. Treasures

She knew they were there. There was nowhere to go from The Cliff but down and these humans were afraid.

The ships were a great treasure for her and she did not share. Much food was within the many corridors, bloated and tender. It attracted the fishfolk and she did NOT share. It was hard work for her to defend them from the crabs and urchin and little nibblers as well as the occasional sharks.

All the things that humans needed she had no use for. Tiny bits of shiny metal bent in all kinds of shapes and fluttering membranes the humans wrapped around themselves to shield away from the harshness of their world. None of it was necesseary when the water gave you everything. The humans up on The Cliff had nothing. They would not survive.

More crabs had gathered. They were rude and tried to wave their claws at her when she took one of the human contraptions and started ushering them away. Some isopods had made their way into her ships again and were greedily helping themselves to her treasure.

Her favourite were the small ones. There were not as many as she'd hoped onboard, so she saved them for later. She wouldn't be able to wait too long though, before they'd become too much even for her. Rot was disgusting.


	3. World above

Taking care of two ships took too much effort and the treasure was beginning to spoil. She no longer chased out the fishfolk, instead letting them in.

Now that she no longer cared to guard the ships she had time to go to The Cliff. When the sea was still she would try and see if the humans had jumped yet. Neither was hard to spot as they were sitting so close to the edges on the opposite sides of The Cliff. They looked a little alike, but then again many humans tended to look the same to her.

The world above was often too bright and it was uncomfortable if the water on her skin dried. Before the Human saw her she had found out that it made her very ill, so much so that her whole body had gone into a panic and dark spots danced before her eyes. This was why she never put much beyond her face above the water anymore.

She wondered why the humans were still alive.

A small fishing boat had come way out to the sea with it's occupant deep asleep. It seemed like it had floated away from wherever it's land was. She had enough food to last, but it was barely edible anymore and capsizing boats wasn't hard at all.


	4. Company

They were _still_ alive and she realised that they must've had food up there on The Cliff. It was difficult to see, but the small one had gotten even smaller since last time. There had once been a ship and the humans had started shouting so suddenly it startled her away. The ship didn't come any closer.

Her treasure was no longer that – she had started hunting for the fish now. Some of them had left when the food was gone, but not all. The sunken ships would become a basis for a new reef as coral and anemone would settle into the nooks and crannies.

She had heard about the concept of companions. She had never known another that looked like her and she hadn't really looked for her kin either. In the corner of her mind she knew that if she ever did, only one of them would leave alive.

Sometimes one species of fishfolk took another as a companion. One would be the safety and one would provide food, like a shark with pilot fish, or a goby with a shrimp. She knew humans to take part in this odd ritual with other creatures that lived on land. They tasted too pungent and they had an odd layer of hair all over them, thicker than what humans had on their heads.

There was no need for a companion in her, she was strong enough to protect herself and hunting was never an issue. She didn't need a nest either, not to mention a whole reef.


	5. Humans

A ship had come and taken the humans away, this was rather intriguing. She had wanted to see how long they'd stay alive before they became too weak to live. The ship was large so there was no way to make it roll over. Too bad.

She followed it to an island where a group of humans left, but she couldn't tell if the ones on The Cliff did. Most likely. Just like the fishfolk belonged to the sea, humans belonged to the land. They had ships to cross the water yet some chose to make their nests in them. Besides crabs, fishfolk never did things like that.

The water around islands was usually warmer than in the open sea. She didn't mind it much as long as she stayed away from the direct glare of the sun. In this too, humans befuddled her. They wanted to roast themselves by basking in the heat, becoming darker or turning red like some of the lobster shells she'd once seen. She nearly glowed in the light.

Before the Human saw her, she'd spent much time on shores. Stones retained the day even after the light had gone away. Then, of course, the Human had seen her. She'd let it approach her, because why not? If the prey was this stupid, it deserved to die.

It hadn't come very close to her. Humans had their own language and she barely understood it. She herself couldn't produce sounds like that.


	6. Midnight snack

The Baratie's grand opening was spectacular, even when he'd been more or less appointed to dishwashing duties. Zeff had his hands full with the cooks and waiters, barking orders and insults left and right like a true pirate captain. Even with the tall hat and white clothes, all Sanji could see was the bastard he owed his life to.

He kept waking up at nights, thirsty, hungry and emaciated. He had to rub his arms to make sure that they weren't just skin and bone. The hollows in his cheeks hadn't faded away yet and he doubted the nightmares would leave with them.

On one of these nights he'd wondered down to the deck, careful not to wake up the owner of the restaurant. The two of them lived in the ship along with most of the cooks, but the waiters came from the closest islands.

He pushed out the terrors with a sandwich, walking barefoot through the door. The blanket he'd taken with him trailed behind the boy as he settled down by the water. Sanji had always both loved and hated how the sea became so dark during the night. A glow bounced across the waves whenever the moon happened to peek through the clouds, seemed like there would soon be rain.

When the white form slid through the water, he pulled his feet up and sat on them for good measure. The blonde had completely frozen still. What sort of fish was this? It was too big to be anything regular that he'd seen swimming around the Baratie.

Suddenly, the face of a woman appeared where his feet had just dangled. In his surprise Sanji nearly inhaled the bite of bread in his mouth.

Of course he had heard about mermaids, who hadn't? They were supposed to be beautiful, cheery and bright, the jewels of the ocean. Long, flowing hair and a powerful tail in place of legs. One of the chefs on the Orbit had talked about them in reverence nearly every opportunity he could. Then again, the man had been somewhat off kilter.

As sure as he was that she wasn't human, he was sure that she wasn't a mermaid either. In part he refused to believe she was because those dead eyes were simply terrifying. They could've been a dark shade of anything for all he knew, but against the pale skin they sure looked black.

"W-who are you!?" his voice was uncomfortably high to his own ears. She didn't answer him. "Are you a mermaid?"

He thought he heard the door creak open behind him and the boy whipped his head around. When he next turned back to look at the face in the water, it was gone.

"Eggplant? What are you doing here?" Zeff's irate voice demanded. His sleeping hat was crooked and flopped to the side. If it hadn't been worn by this man of all people, the chefs of the Baratie would've made endless fun of it.

Sanji just stammered that he hadn't been able to sleep and came outside to get some fresh air. He completely omited the wierd mermaid-not-mermaid encounter. In light of that, he was quite happy to share anything else – even his recent insomnia. It spurred a long hour of talking that had honestly made him feel better and a little more closer with the old man.


	7. Prey

The little human had to be the same one that had been on The Cliff, had to. All she remembered was that both the humans had had yellow hair. This little human was on the thin side, as if not having fed well. It wouldn't make for a good meal.

She wasn't sure what possessed her to reveal herself to it, but the frightened reaction had been quite amusing. There were plenty big humans around so she had been very careful to do so. It was pure chance that she happened to see it's legs fall from the ship.

After she had revealed herself, the little human had begun to spend more time close to the water. No fishfolk was this careless to expose themselves to where beasts lurked. At least the big humans were keeping the small one inside for long times during the day, but at night it was different. It came again and again to the same place, peering into the sea. Did it want to get eaten?

Once there had been a shark. It came hunting for the other fishfolk and she didn't have anything against it, as long as it didn't come after her. There were many fish living under the anchored ship because the humans dropped food into the water every now and then. The shark couldn't catch any of them.

It didn't try to eat her.


	8. Leg made of ship, yellow hair

Many of the fishfolk never left. The humans sometimes tossed their food into the water for them. She wasn't really sure why they did so, the fish could find their own easy enough.

The little human still looked for her, it was getting irksome. She left for five sleeps to find better food than the fish and ended up finding a human that had gone for a swim. It made a lot of needless noise when she bit into it and dragged it away under the waves. This prey had tasted very good, soft and smooth, even when there was not much to eat.

She returned to the fish headed ship during a night. Relief was strong when there was no sign of the little human, but the big human was there instead. It had a leg made of ship. Was it looking for her as well?

Most of the night she watched how it stood there, immobile like stone. Such an odd human. It was large, even for a human, and she knew that this one was more dangerous than any shark she had seen. Maybe it even ate sharks, she wouldn't be surprised if it did.

A strong instinct to stay far away from this human arose. She needed to commit it into her memory. A leg made of ship, yellow hair. A leg made of ship, yellow hair. A leg made of ship, yellow hair.


	9. Food

_Leg made of ship, yellow hair_ didn't come each night, but it occurred more than not. The big human always stood there staring somewhere far away to the darkened sea before going to the other side of the ship. She didn't know if Leg made of ship, yellow hair made the little human not come looking for her again, but it hadn't been snooping around the water as much as before.

Then one bright day she decided to do something different. She went out to look for the little human instead.

Even when she couldn't recall what the two humans on The Cliff looked like, there was a quality that clung to both the small and the big one. Hunger did odd things to all creatures between the deep, cool darkness and the searing sun.

She peered above the water to see if she could spot the pair of small legs among the humans. It was a rather busy day, one of those where the humans dragged large pieces of clunky items outside and then other humans perched on them with human food. Everything was quite confusing to her, eating seemed like a hassle.

The little human didn't come out a lot. She had begun to wonder if it even would, when something suddenly fell in the water right next to her. She thought she'd been caught and immediately pulled away. It was human food that now leisurely sank with a school of fish trailing around it. There had never been a need to eat human food, because who would eat the food your food eats?


	10. Singing

Hunting and eating was needed to survive. It was just something that happened. All fishfolk knew it, but she had an inkling that not all humans understood it. Humans ate fishfolk and life went on. If a fishfolk ate a human it disturbed the humans greatly and made them weary.

She had never hunted around the anchored ship, even when there was prey in abundance. It was no inconvinience. This was not a den nor a proper reef, just a place where the fishfolk gathered to feed. The ship wouldn't disappear if she didn't return in several sleeps.

Looking for the little human was beginning to feel like a challenge. The big human _Leg made of ship, yellow hair_ guarded the ship with such vigilance that for a brief moment she thought the other humans were it's young. No, she knew better. Perhaps the little human was it's young, but the other humans were definitely not.

There was a second time she revealed herself to the little human. It had been looking for her again, making a human call of sorts. Once she had breached the surface, the little human had leaned so close towards her that she thought it would fall over the edge.

Those that became ill without air could make all these elaborate sounds and so far the whales were the greatest singers. Humans were dreadful at it. She couldn't understand a single thing coming out of the little human's mouth.


	11. Blood

She had forgotten to be careful. She knew fishfolk and she knew humans, but humans that were like fishfolk was not something she had ever seen before. Her sea was as safe as it could be and she had _forgotten._ Now there was blood in the water and she bared her teeth in warning to a shark. It was circling around her, assessing the situation to see if she was worth it. She knew she wasn't. She could still rip the creature apart if it tried to come too close.

The fish-headed ship loomed above her and the crowd of predators. All she wished for was some rest, but she knew she wouldn't be able to do so until the bleeding stopped. A wisp of red kept seeping out of a ragged tear in her scales.

Her patience snapped and fury overtook her. With a soundless snarl her small, spiked fin flared up and she flung herself at the sharks. Blood and sea became one.

Though several sharks had been killed and one had left to nurse it's wounds, she was still not left alone. Staying was not the best option, yet if she drifted away, she might've just attracted more attention to herself. She was tired.

In a bold move if anything she climbed up on the edge of the ship. Leg made of ship, yellow hair was nowhere to be seen and she was glad of it.


	12. The beast in the waters

Sanji scrubbed blood out of the ship's deck.

Nobody knew anything about it and it was gross, not to mention the sight had caused a pretty lady client to pass out.

Then a mangy piece of flesh had floated to dance on the waves and Zeff had promptly given a free day for all the waiters and waitresses. He just wondered if any of them would return, they'd already repelled at least six of them with the cooks' shitty attitude and there'd been a rumour about something haunting the ship. It made bad business.

He'd never told anyone about the wierd mermaid, but he suspected that Zeff knew about it. The bastard somehow always knew everything going on in the ship and immediate area, all the way down to how many eggs there were in the seagull's nest at the peak of the tallest mast. Truthfully, it was kind of creepy.

The apprentice listened how the cooks dived under the Baratie to see what was going on and Patty came up with a report of several dead sharks, holding a piece of a grey tailfin. Having been fearless pirates in their past, none of the cooks cowered in fear that something had just casually slaughtered a few man-sized beasts.

"No, it'd be useless to move the ship," Zeff had said when someone asked if they should do it. "Whatever it was either passed by or it lives here, which would mean we need to move the ship too far away for customers to find us again."

The blood had soaked right into the planks and he doubted he'd ever get them clean without taking the deck itself apart. It did look gruesome and the other cooks had first tried to keep him from seeing the scene, but in Zeff's opinion it built character. Besides, the old man had assured them that it wasn't from a person and Sanji could grudgingly agree. It smelled like fish. It just raised new questions.

He enjoyed the unexpected free day, since they were usually open six days of the week. In fact he enjoyed it all the way until Zeff dragged his tired ass out of bed for a talk in the dining hall. A lantern sat between them on the table and moonlight cast sharp shadows across the walls. Neither spoke in the first few seconds while the master chef was gathering up his thoughts.

"How long has it been around?"

"Wh-what?"

"Tell me, eggplant."

There was a sense of seriousness in his voice that didn't leave room to argue. He had half the mind to lie, deny he'd seen anything out of ordinary, deny he knew what the old man was talking about.

And then he crumbled under the scrutiny, his voice but a mumble. "Two weeks after we opened."

That night, Zeff told him all he knew about the she-serpents.


	13. Guards

A small boat had set off from the anchored ship right when the sun had come visible. She had seen the boat before. Usually it carried two humans in it, but the little one was with them this time. She had once followed it to an island where it returned with things the humans needed. As the boat floated away from the nesting ship, she was becoming uneasy.

The strange humans that resembled fishfolk were troubling. Her wound was deep and it ached. It would take many sleeps to heal from this sort of injury and while that was, there was no chance she would be able to rest properly. It was a good thing that she didn't need much sleep.

She followed the boat.

Leg made of ship, yellow hair guarded it's young very well. When a foe would arrive, it was chased away. The little human was learning how to defend itself. The little human wasn't so little anymore.

Her body ached with each movement, every careful stroke stretched the skin around the wound. It was a good thing that the boat wasn't very fast.


	14. Hunger

Being unable to rest was not something that would be her end, but being unable to hunt was a problem. She considered taking over the human food that fell into the water. With her injury, it was impossible to keep with the competition.

Leg made of ship, yellow hair was replaced by the little human. It stood there much like the big human had, looking for something in the distance and not coming near the water. She was hungry.

The air felt sharp on her face when she revealed herself yet again. The little human didn't come to her like before. She wondered if the human had grown smarter to understand the presence of a predator and a strange feeling of pride welled inside her. She was still hungry.

She watched and waited what the little human would do. Ever so softly it made a string of sounds that didn't seem to hold much of a message for her and the tone was unfamiliar. It reminded her of the first time she was seen.

The little human came forward. A little closer and she would be able to reach it's leg.

A circular disc was set between the two like a barrier with something on it. She tasted the air, such an odd concept, and came to the conclusion that the human was trying to _feed_ her.


	15. Comfortable

Her face bobbed above the water and it was starting to dry, but she didn't care. The little human was making it's sounds. For the lack of better word, it was trying to sing.

She was better now than before. The ache in her injury was largely gone if she didn't try and do sudden movements. Hunting was out of the question. The little human was peculiarily bringing it's food for her every time they met. She wasn't sure what the human expected her to do besides pull the disc in the water and dive after it, but from the pitch of his songs she knew it wasn't too pleased with it.

When the sun was at it's highest, she retreated deep under the fish-headed ship. There the water was cool and comfortable for her. The little human that wasn't so little anymore reminded her of that brightness. It's hair was much more than just yellow.

Maybe one day when it would grow, she wouldn't be able to tell it apart from it's other kin. All humans were alike. Some where big, others were small, yet they were still the same.

Observing the human was easy when it didn't go away like good prey did. It was like the sun, bright and warm and unnatural to her. It kept bringing her food and sat there and she didn't go away until another human was heard approaching.


	16. The sun

The sun fell into the ocean and it didn't go out for the first time she ever saw. A head of gold lured her in. She realised it was the little human that wasn't so little anymore. It was diving after another human that was sinking like rocks. It was trapped in a net. The little human that wasn't so little anymore was a better swimmer than any of her prey.

Because the little human that wasn't so little anymore had bothered to jump for another of it's kin, it must've been important to it. There was blood in the water and it was coming from both of them. The little human that wasn't so little anymore and the important human were both injured and she found herself mildly distressed about the information.

Neither noticed her. That was both a disappointment and a relief.

She remembered how the little human had fed her when she was injured. Should she feed the little human? Would it be able to hunt at all, or would other humans do that for it? In case they didn't, she decided to catch a large fish to give to the little human when it came looking for her the next time.

It was leaving it's nest, she could feel. The little human that wasn't so little anymore was a very sunlike human.


	17. Important human

A dread rose inside her when she realised where the boat was sailing. Her scar throbbed enough as a reminder. As much as she wanted to ask the very sunlike human why it was deliberately going towards danger, she remained silent. There was nothing she could do but keep up.

There was never need for her to convince herself otherwise from the truth. What was pride before instinct? The instincts were demanding she turn around right now.

Yet she didn't. The very sunlike human was strong enough to take on the large fish that called itself a king of the sea. It wasn't very strong but she approved the very sunlike human's actions. The king of the sea had tried to eat the tiny boat and it had known it.

Other humans in the boat as well. For some reason, she could recall the loud one to be the human that couldn't swim. This was the important human. Or maybe it was ordinary and the very sunlike human had just not wished for it to perish.

It's hair wasn't yellow. It had something stuck on it's head.


	18. Delicious

The maybe important human was stuck at the bottom of the sea by it's feet. She watched it do everything in it's power to resist it. Humans were like whales and dolphins in this way, but they needed air far more regularily. It would die soon.

Up on the shore the very sunlike human was fighting the humans that looked like fishfolk. It wasn't alone. The other human was very green, like the stalks of kelp fluttering in the currents. She could immediately tell that this one should've been dead for a long time, yet wasn't.

When the stingray dived after the very sunlike human, she didn't hesitate.

The very sunlike human broke through stone while the stringray tore into her scales. It was strong, yes, but unable to be her end. Her teeth were as sharp as a shark's. She could bite through a clam. She had once tried to bite through an anchor, too, but that was a bit too much.

Biting through the skin of a stingray was not difficult, but this also looked like a human. It sang in the tongue of humans and spoke with the words of the fishfolk. It demanded her to tell who she was, but she was silent. She had never tasted anything more delicious.


	19. Fear and delight

All he needed was a glimpse of silver and he instantly knew that the she-serpent had followed him. It hadn't even occured to Sanji that she would, being seemingly content to live at the restaurant. Somehow he was incredibly happy and incredibly anxious about it. What the old man had told him all those years ago had burned into the back of his mind.

"Never, under any circumstances, think that it's a person," chef Zeff's grave words haunted him. "They're as much a fish as the tuna on your cutting board. They're cunning, wicked, hungering and relentless. And most of all," here he had leaned in over the table. "They love the taste of human flesh."

Sanji had seen nightmares for a long while, thinking that instead of a monster under his bed, there was one under his home. He had seen the sharp teeth lining her mouth.

The fact that it had chosen to follow him was like a slick, living feeling worming it's way under his skin. Logically the cook was aware that she posed no threat to him anymore, he was strong and no shitty fish was going to be the end of him. All despite this his inner child was holding on to the security blankets with a grip so hard his figurative knuckles were white.

The 14 year old Sanji had approached his fear in the only way he'd been able to come up with – bribery. He hadn't been sure what he'd wanted to accomplish with the glorious plate of steak, but the look of hunger on her face had told him that it was the right thing to do. Hunger he knew.

And then there was the happiness. He was blissfully happy that she had wanted to follow him and he had no idea where all that happiness and light was coming from. In part it could've been because she was so beautiful his heart ached to think she was anything less than a human, screw the old man. He liked her company, even when the she-serpent never said anything.

Sanji could've forgotten she wasn't human if it wasn't for the sharklike, empty, dead eyes embedded into the sweet face. If you happened to miss the unblinking gaze, at least the fins covering the sides of her head was a giveaway.

It was curious, really, now that he thought about it. Slowly chewing on a piece of melon ham, he tried to remember an instance in their brief encounters where there was any sort of visible emotion on her besides the occasional snarl of teeth.

The sounds of the ongoing celebration was shoving into his conciousness and dispersing all dark clouds. Aaaah, it was a great night to be alive, especially when the beautiful Nami-swan was going to be their navigator!


	20. Red stone

The small ship that the very sunlike human had moved into looked odd. She didn't recognise what the creature at the front of it was supposed to be. The important human clinged to it often and she wondered how it would taste like. Just like the very sunlike human, the important human didn't seem to understand to be cautious.

The very sunlike human kept feeding her. Before it had left it's nest it had always made the specific call that she knew it associated with her. Now when it wanted to gain her attention, it dropped one of those bent pieces of metal overboard. She had found out that it was used to spear bits of food and bring them to your mouth, but it seemed so ridiculously unnecesseary that she had shown teeth.

It had copied her, surprisingly. Then it started that scale-scraping song of it's and she decided that she should not do it again.

She had never been very far from her homewaters. Where she had come from was too long ago for her to remember anymore, there were so many sleeps and deaths and storms. She was aware that her sea wasn't the only one and that the world was far bigger than she could envision.

Leaving her sea was easy. Following the ship and the very sunlike human was easy. Going up a massive stone that dwarfed everything she knew was less so. It was not impossible, just not as easy. The ship had strayed away into eerily calm waters that was swarmed by strange fishfolk. She heard that they were kings of the sea. They were huge as well, but not as huge as the Red Stone.


	21. Whales

There had once been a Whale in her sea. He had been ancient, existed since before her memory started. The Whale had been powerful and then he had died. She never knew why that was. The Whale's death had been gradual and she often missed his songs. He had been the best singer she'd ever known.

This whale was mournful. It was in denial. It was angry as well. It missed it's companions, it's family and pod. The whale kept hitting itself against the Red Stone even when the Red Stone was so much larger than the whale. It wanted to go back so hard, but all that happened was the creature simply gained more and more scars.

The humans were swallowed by the whale and then they came back with a scrap of floating land. She was surprised about it all. Such bizarre things were happening and she didn't understand.

She enjoyed this whale's songs, even when they were sad. They told of a ship full of _pirates_ that loved to sing and sail around the world, searching for adventures and new places. She didn't know what these _pirates_ were. Maybe she'd come across some.

It was a pleasant day, up until when the important human broke the little ship to hurt the whale. It's songs were different from there on. The whale was still sad, but not as sad as before.


	22. Proper human

Another human had boarded the little ship. It's hair was the colour of the sky. It brought along a very strange and yellow thing, walking on two feet. It reminded her of seagulls, so perhaps it was distant kin to them. She had also seen a turtle. Turtles were difficult to break into because of the hard shell, but they were quite good. This one was too large for her to kill and it seemed like all the creatures in this sea were bigger than her. It was a good thing that the very sunlike human liked to feed her.

She stayed down and away from the surface for a while after the shockwave.

From the way the very sunlike human danced by two of the humans, she suspected it was a male. Male fishfolk would flutter before it's fancied female like this in hopes of producing offspring. Maybe the human with pale blue hair was a female, then. The same would've been for one of the other humans on the ship. She couldn't remember which one it was, but it was very violent.

That night, the bent metal fell over the edge of the ship and she retrieved it for the very sunlike human.

Except that it wasn't the very sunlike human. This human was very loud and acted like good prey, fleeing from the sight of her. It had alerted it's fellow kin that came hurried to see what was going on. Usually when fishfolk told of danger, it was meant as "stay away". This must've been the only proper human on the whole ship, then. How frustraiting.


	23. Hallow's eve bonus

"I REFUSE!"

"Usopp, come on-"

"NO! I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY REFUSE!"

And so he did. The trapdoor leading to the men's room held tight with whatever the boy had used to seal himself in. Nami, Luffy and Vivi were all sitting or squatting around the square in the floor. Usopp's muffled cries were accompanied by Caroo's quacks, since the sniper had dragged him down there for his own comfort.

"Usopp! This is _ridiculous_! Open the door!"

"I need my fishing pole!" Luffy pouted.

"I AM NEVER COMING OUT AGAIN!"

"AT LEAST YOU COULD TELL US WHY YOU LOCKED YOURSELF IN THERE!" The navigator was quickly running out of patience. The captain had begun pestering _her_ because he couldn't get his fishing pole. This, in turn, was delaying dinnertime.

"Isn't there an emergency door from the women's room to the men's?" Zoro asked. Nami looked at him and then at Vivi, before dashing off to try her luck. Soon enough, they could hear a crash and a shrill scream.

The trapdoor popped open with Nami grinning like she hadn't just smacked the shit out of their fellow crewmember. "He forgot to lock it!"

Only later when Sanji had called everyone to the table did Usopp crawl out from behind the couch. He didn't talk much during dinner, just quivering in his overalls so badly he dropped his fork on the floor. His reaction was to abruptly jump on top of the table.

"Hey!"

"Oi! I have a foot in my fish!"

"What the hell!?"

But none of those voices belonged to Sanji. He saw the connection easily-

The fork _moved._

On it's own.

"What the shit?"

"THERE'S A GHOOOOOOOOOOOOST!" Usopp warbled and clung to a bowl of salad. "IT'S HERE FOR MY SOOOOOOUUUUUUL!"

Zoro smacked him in the back of his head. "Ghosts aren't real, dumbass."

The chef on the other hand had a sturdy superstitious bone in him and paled. The fork on the floor wasn't exactly tapdancing around, but the wiggle it did seemed to have a sort of a purpose. Every little motion was taking it towards the galley door.

"So cooool!" Luffy's eyes glittered. His hand was still stuffing his face, though.

"A-as much as I too believe in ghosts, Usopp-san, I don't think that's it," Vivi's cheeks had lost some of their healthy glow. Another piece of silverwear on the table shifted. "We must be close to a magnetic reef. The coral species are special with how they utilise certain metals in the area they grow in, and become mildly magnetic."

"Are we going to be okay? I mean, the log pose..." Nami frowned.

"No need to worry. The magnetic fields are only strong in short distances," she chuckled. "Nothing to an actual island."

With this, Usopp was placated. For now.

Sometime after nightfall he was happily nursing a cup of hot tea on the deck. He had three mismatched lanterns lit up and scattered around the deck to ward off the dark, even when it usually wasn't smart to be a beacon in the night for unfriendly vessels.

Such a nice night... and then he happened to look down in the water. Usopp choked on his tea and prayed to every god he knew that the slowly moving host of _drowned spirits_ would pass without noticing him.


	24. Craving

Water slowly became warmer. Her sea was a pleasant cold and here she wasn't sure if she liked it or not. She craved for the taste of human. The fish and the human food was there, but she had stopped eating it against what was the nature of all living things. There were several bent pieces of metal lying in the bottom of the ocean by now. The odd little ship had humans on it, yet it was too heavy to tip over.

The island they came across was a shade more green than she had ever seen. The sounds were different and dangerous, the stone itself trembled with an unseen force. She wondered if the very sunlike human would go there despite all this. They were bad prey, afterall.

Even the human she saw was massive. It leaned over the thin water the ship had been left in and she wondered if she would be able to down it. Her hunger was stronger than her instinct to stay alive, so when it reached over the water, she struck. It was as loud as it was large.

Her victory wasn't great nor satisfying. The big human acted just like little humans, but it didn't become cautious. Instead, it only came closer to see what sort of creature had attacked it. Stupid thing.

Sharks could go into a feeding frenzy. She certainly did.


	25. Stars

Afterwards she berated herself for becoming careless, again. The big human had managed to grab her once and squeeze enough to shatter bone. She was aware of this with the way the broken flesh felt nothing but a mass of buzzing pain. Swimming was exceedingly difficult and she had latched herself at the bottom of the ship to get dragged along it. At least the worst of her craving was gone now.

When the ship stopped for a night and set down it's anchor, she held on to the chain. She concentrated on not moving. At least she didn't have visible injuries to attract beasts.

The glint of metal caught her attention and she went after it. She was dependant on the very sunlike human again, wanted she or not. Fetching the piece was difficult and she didn't even try and climb up on the ship's edge.

She heard it calling her, but it's voice wasn't as loud as usually. It was a nice change. The sky looked like the sea when the sun wasn't awake and it was littered with innumerable amounts of shining spots. Stars, that's what they were called. Their reflections were fragmented over the water.

The very sunlike human was looking down at her. She could see it's golden hair as bright as the stars. It could've been just as far away for her. The very sunlike human was waving around and she thought it wanted it's piece of useless metal back, so she tossed it up there. It scrambled after it, but she waited patiently for the human to return.


	26. Precious monster

Usopp had been scared shitless by the so called ghost until she apparently ripped open one of the giants. He kept praising her and was now calling her a saving angel. Of course, the giants turned out to be nice folk, but both the sharpshooter and Nami-san were convinced that a mysterious person had tried to save them.

Oh how Sanji wanted to believe it. Shizu, as he had taken to calling her, didn't do things like that. The more truthful explanation was most likely that she had really tried to just eat Brogy. He hadn't seen the damage she'd caused, just a massive, clean bandage wrapped around his arm.

The shore next to the Merry was a different story. Rusty splatters could be seen on the riverbank stones as well as the side of their happy caravel like an omnious story.

She hadn't been appearing for a few days and he'd assumed she'd been hunting for her own. There had been the thought that the serpent had decided to leave him and go live her own life. That had created a void of sorts in his chest and Sanji hadn't been surprised about it in the least.

He wondered if Shizu had been hurt in the short conflict. It was clear she couldn't move naturally when he finally did see her. Even when the tail wasn't colourful and it lacked the classical fin, it was elegant in it's own, plain way. It was also swaying in the water rather uselessly now. The cook had tried to draw her in, belatedly realising that it was out of the picture if she was as injured as he thought she was.

In the back of his mind Sanji knew he should've told them about her. Luffy definitely, since he was the captain. Maybe that shitty swordsman. They ought to know so they could be cautious. Knowing their captain, the brat would just try and pet her.

He adored Shizu yes, but his fellow nakama were just as important. If one hurt the other, he'd never forgive himself. He wasn't even sure why she hadn't tried to eat _him_ yet. Or maybe she had tried it when he was younger and he hadn't noticed it.

Whatever was the case, he was going to keep feeding her. With the gorgeous Nami-san being bedbound now with a high fever, they would need a doctor onboard. Maybe their future doctor wouldn't mind if he snatched some medical things and tried to help the she-serpent.

Shizu was, after all, irreplaceably precious to him. If he ever had to choose between his crew and his monster, he wasn't sure if he could pick either over the other. The chef could feel his burden weight on his shoulders already, the future headaches knocking at his doors.


	27. Cold

Her sea changed temperature and from that she always knew it would soon snow. The changes, however, had never been as drastic as she found in this foreign sea to be. It had been pleasantly warm. That had been nice. Now it was cold. She liked cold too.

But this sort of cold was making her lethargic. It made her want to sleep. She couldn't afford this, unfortunately. Were she to let go of the ship in her deep rest and sink to the bottom, she would not come up again. It mattered little if she was injured or not. Death was not something she wished for herself.

Ice had been a rare thing to witness. Here there was ice everywhere. The sea had a roof that she couldn't hope to pierce, the only open waters being behind the odd little ship. The very sunlike human had given her steaming hot food and it had somewhat helped.

Slowly and surely she could feel her fragile flesh begin to mend. The bone would take longer. She couldn't remember, but she somehow knew that she had broken bones before.

She continued to resist the temptation to close her eyes and fall.


	28. Warm

She barely noticed when the ship dropped anchor into a new river. With great effort she shoved aside the pushy ice floats to see the humans climb out. They all had thick _human things_ on them to ward off the cold. Looking like this she could barely tell the very sunlike human from the others.

One of the humans was being carried.

Another human had decided to jump into the water with her. This human was without the protective layers, barely in any of them. It was bulky. Maybe it was strong. It had it's back towards her. If she reached out, she'd be able to touch it. She did just that and discovered that this human was extremely warm.

It turned around faster than she anticipated. The human's eyes became large and it kicked itself up to the surface, breaking ice easily. Then it started swimming away.

She already missed that warmth. If she followed the human, she would be able to touch it again and take some of the warm. Easiest would've been to eat it, yet she knew that it wouldn't be wise to try. She was so cold and none of her body wanted to obey her.


	29. Human face

When the humans returned, they brought along one of those little, furry creatures. It wasn't quite the same as she had come to know. It sang human songs and the humans treated it as if it was a human as well. She wondered if it tasted the same like all the other pelted creatures on land.

She had seen her own reflection from broken mirrors from time to time. There was nothing exceptional about it. She knew she had a human face and sometimes wondered if they thought she was one. It would've explained why the Human hadn't ran off screaming when she first was seen.

It was odd how some humans couldn't see danger. Maybe they had an illness to them that made them that way. There were many humans, so they must've been fast to reproduce to keep up their species. Some humans were quite strong.

Maybe it was her human face that fooled them. She vaguely knew it was the point of having it so. Easier to lure them in if she seemed like kin. She wasn't sure how she knew it, it simply was.

When the very sunlike human called for her next time, it had food. It waved it's limb at her, singing in quiet sounds. The very sunlike human didn't tip the food into the sea. It kept waving. She propelled up and towards it, she was hungry.


	30. Provide

The foreign sea began to warm up. There were more bright fish. She could swim better now, no longer paralyzed by the surrounding chill.

She wasn't sure what to think of the tight wrappings around her. It constricted her movement. No longer were the broken bones digging so hard into the flesh. The very sunlike human had done this for her, and she didn't know why.

Her thoughts turned again to the fishfolk that lived in pairs, those that took companions. If the very sunlike human provided her with food and mending, what did she bring to the human? Was it getting something from her? She certainly hadn't done anything she knew of. Perhaps she was the protector.

The odd little ship sailed through a place where the water became air. It tasted foul. The bottom of the ocean was scalding and broken and _moving_. Without giving much thought to her injuries, she sped away to swim ahead. Something strange fell into the water with her.

It was a colourful human. Blue and pink. It didn't know how to swim at all, just like the important human. One of the ship's humans jumped after the sinking one.


	31. Seagulls

Not many shores in her sea had sand, only cliffs of stone or grey gravel. Here it was fine and soft to the touch. The fish were hungry. They ate humans too and she could relate. There were many, many ships heading to this endless shore and she along the other fishfolk groused together how they were out of their reach. The bigger ones could swallow a ship whole if so wanted. These humans on their numerous ships were dangerous and killed the fishfolk when they tried.

The humans on the odd little ship dropped anchor.

She wished for the deeper waters. The world above looked like the sun and she wondered if this was where the very sunlike human had come from in the first place.

And then the humans came back. They seemed to be in haste with other humans chasing them. Why would they retreat? They seemed to defy logic when they went looking for danger, yet took caution with the many humans in white. They reminded her of the creatures that swam against the sky. _Seagulls_. Hungry seagulls. The humans were escaping _seagulls_?

The odd little ship floated away to the open waters. A tiny scrap of a boat had followed it and she thought she saw her opportunity. It was small and it was light, it would sink easy. It only had one human on it.


	32. The first mate

A habit by now, he'd looked over the railing to see if he could spot her, only to find a boat approaching them. Even from this distance Sanji could recognise the lone man to be the one they saw earlier, Firefist Ace and Luffy's brother. Then the pale shimmer, barely visible to the untrained eye, darted out and towards the boat and there was a splash-

"SHIZU, **NO**!"

But the Whitebeard pirate had already jumped out of harm's way. It left Sanji staring down like a hawk, the boat left upright and the she-serpent nowhere to be seen. No, wait, there she was, all but a waver that simply wasn't as blue as the rest of the sea. Also, he was gathering looks and verbal questions ranging from surprise to the shitty Marimo's narrow glare.

He busied himself in the kitchen after Ace had left, not because he was avoiding the rest of the crew, but because Luffy was surely hungry. Actually, the more the chef thought about it, it wouldn't hurt to have an energizing snack before they headed off into the desert. The bags needed to be packed too and he could do that while the others ate.

That sounded like a solid plan. Luffy tried to break into the galley not five minutes after he had started and was kicked out immediately. Good, some normalcy to soothe his mind before the storm.

The door opened up again. He was about to curse the captain's persistance when he came face to face with Zoro, and the man didn't look like he was going to take any bullshit from him.

He could always try-

No, that look on the first mate's face was uncompromising. It reminded him of the talk with Zeff way too much and way too little and it made him feel like a child again. Sanji wasn't a kid anymore, and he refused to let Zoro intimidate him. If the bastard wanted something, he better work for it. Thus, he hid the shake of his hands into setting flame on another cigarette and waited.

Ah, hell. Zoro didn't even address him, just crossed his arms across his chest. The figurative thunder was rolling in fast.

He sighed, the wisps of smoke rising to the ceiling. "What do you want?" No snark, no sulphur, not even that smoothness worthy of a high class cocktail bar. He was going to keep his head low before the swordsman, just this once.

"You know damn well what I want, Sanji. _Talk._ "

And so he did. Oh god was his mouth dry.

Hesitantly, he told Zoro about the fish that had lived under the restaurant, the fish that looked like a human. Sanji told him that the she-serpent had followed him all the way from East Blue and how their kind were man eaters in the literal sense. If it wasn't enough proof how it had reacted to Ace, he reminded the first mate about the giant's torn arm.

Then Zoro had asked him the billion beri question. "Will everyone on this ship be safe?"

He couldn't say it. He realised that at some point of the conversation, his eyes had wandered to the tips of his shoes. The blond felt uncomfortable, awful and exhausted. Then he lifted his gaze up to meet with his nakama and saw Zoro's eyes widen just a little.

Sanji loathed to know what kind of face he was making.

"Please, don't hurt it."

The words came out more silent than he wanted them to. He really, really didn't want Zoro to hurt Shizu. He even went so far as to call her an it.

Zoro's expression hardened back to what it usually was and Sanji felt his heart leap up to his throat. "As long as it won't hurt any of the crew, I'll let it be. Just know that I _will_ tell Luffy about this."

The chef could've not feel more greatful towards the shitty Marimo... and just for that, he was going to make him eat splinters the next time they'd have a fight. _Shitty_ Marimo.


	33. Dugongs

The ship wasn't leaving the island yet. It had settled into a river that was more like the sea. She wasn't sure what to think of the pelted creatures with hard shells, they were loud and their presence clogged the entire area. The creatures tasted terrible. They were also quite rude. She had to show teeth to make them back down, but it was only aggravating them.

As she peeked into the world above, she saw the important human attacking them. _Dugongs_ , she heard them call themselves. She wasn't sure what kung-fu was.

The important human didn't go for a kill, only to overpower. When one was beaten down, the others became docile. How utterly stupid! If you hunt in a pack, you do not simply back off when one has failed.

She bit the nearest dugong and warned it from coming any more closer. It was more hesitant now, cautiously staring at her. Then she snarled and flared her gills. The creatures flitted away and out of the water. She headed back towards the odd little ship to have some peace.

Later one of them dared to come closer to her, but it had food. She knew the taste of it as it spread through the water and she knew that only the very sunlike human made human food like this. The dugong all but abandoned the soggy bundle in it's haste to get away.


	34. Sharklike ships

Some ships were large as whales. The ship that had disturbed her peace before the very sunlike human had left it's nest was sizeable, but not particularily dangerous. She had already learnt that the seagull-coloured humans were making those on the odd little ship flighty. Apparently those people had ships as well.

If the big, wounded ship was a whale, these were sharks. They were throwing things at the one with the very sunlike human aboard, circling it like predators. These knew how to hunt in a pack. The odd little ship was their prey.

She did NOT share.

The sharklike ships were too large for her attacks and she couldn't do a thing about it. She could hear the colourful human's loud song. Perhaps it was trying to call for the humans on the odd little ship. It sounded distinctly like one of the large seagulls she'd seen before. They had long necks and they were vicious. They didn't taste that bad.

She was much pleased when the sharklike ships started sinking. She liked sinking ships, the waters were swarming with all this prey. Even with her injury they were easy pickings. Many held on to their steel and edge. That did not help. She could see the odd little ship hurrying away. Before it became but a distant cloud, she followed. She brought a chunk of flesh with her.


	35. At ease

The very sunlike human was by the water. It's legs were barely touching the sea. The stone it sat on was warm. She knew because she'd touched it, and because it was warm in the world above. The water was cool. That was good. She never wanted to go back to the island that was all shore.

It was at ease, she could tell. She saw this as a sign that the island had been cleared as safe for the humans to roam. Same couldn't be said about the ocean. There was a group of fishfolk she had no seperate name for. They were constantly in hunt. _Hunger did odd things to all creatures._

She had decided to stay close to the very sunlike human. Where the others were, she didn't care. The very sunlike human's song filtered throught the water in muted splotches.

It still didn't know how to sing. It was irritating. She hoped that something would teach it how to be a proper human, be afraid of the predator and stop making those painfully awful sounds!

She splashed it with a flick of her tail. The motion hurt. At least it stopped... for a moment, before it started anew. All she could do was bare her teeth in a mute snarl.


	36. Acknowledgement

A dead, dead ship had crashed into the sea and it had come from the sky. It had been much bigger than the odd little ship. The big one nearly fell on it. Then the humans had decided to jump in. They were clad in the wierdest plates she had seen, made of ship and skin. She could see the very sunlike human in one of them.

Why had the humans decided to huddle in such bulky things, when you could simply swim? She knew they had no fins or tails. Legs still worked if you moved them right.

Ah, humans needed air more regularily than whales. That mustve been it. Much of her living prey had been killed in this fashion. The bulky human things were full of air.

The dead ship held her no more interest than a pile of stones, but the humans still toiled in it's depths. She could see that the very sunlike human had seen her by it's gestures. By now she was somewhat sure that the wave of it's hand was a sort of acknowledgement. When one human did it to another, the second human usually copied the motion. Humans did that a lot.

She raised a hand slowly and carefully. Then she flailed it in a similiar manner as the very sunlike human. It wasn't quite the same.


	37. Restless

This island was loud. She was not pleased with it. There were lound bangs and screams and violent songs flittering through the area. It seemed like the humans here had attacked the important human and the one she vaguely remembered due to the sheer amount of green on it.

She was quite relieved that the odd little ship had left and anchored somewhere else. Why they didn't leave completely was aggravating. There was nothing wrong with stopping and resting, but she preferred travel over staying still.

The very sunlike human was unable to find rest. It manifested in silence and lots of staring. It was unnerving. She realised that the human had colour in it's only visible eye, a ring of blue. Fishfolk didn't have that, their eyes were black and white or silver. It was as strange as the prey that didn't act like prey.

Water here was deep and dark. The island fell into the sea in a straight cliff and the oceanfloor was full of massive holes. It felt too brittle. It was worn. It was tired. The waters rested over it nevertheless.

She wanted out of the waters and she knew that this was wrong. The feeling was becoming more and more urgent as the light passed overhead. The very sunlike human came looking for her.


	38. Communications

He wasn't prepared for the she-serpent to actually launch out of the water and drag herself over the grass like a frantic eel. Sanji had to step aside to let her pass, even when it meant that she had scared the living daylights out of Usopp, Chopper and Nami-san. A quick glance towards Zoro told him that the swordsman wasn't nearly as relaxed as a second ago.

Shizu had pulled all her impressive tail on solid ground by now, and boy was it that. He'd never actually seen her this up and close, counting when he'd managed to brace her pliant bones to the best of his ability. That had been a wrestle and now afterwards he was just glad she hadn't mauled him.

The chef hadn't thought that her lower body was that long, nor how it turned flat towards the end – most likely an evolutionary aid she shared with the rest of the serpentlike things in the ocean.

Well. Luffy seemed awfully interested in the sudden sealife beaching herself. Sanji watched how the captain pestered her with a rapid barrage of questions and exclamations. She on the other hand didn't look like she was doing well with the combination of dry land, people and all that was _Luffy_.

Sanji kicked the shitty captain in the head to get him away from her, telling him to get lost. Shizu's face might've not held a single known emotion, but if he looked closely at how her human back tensed and her eyes wandered from one person to another, he was pretty sure she was scared. Or confused.

" _Why_ would you do that?" he asked out loud, mostly out of habit. She spared him a blank look even when she was already beginning to squirm. "You're going to suffocate. Go on, shoo, back to the water with you- or not, I guess..."

She'd pulled her lips back to reveal the rows of sharp teeth. His arm wisely retreated from biting range.

And then Usopp had pointed out rather loudly that this was the person who had torn up the giant's arm. Chopper, who hadn't been there when it had happened, looked up to the sniper and asked what he was talking about. Robin-chan had been speculatively quiet until then.

"Cook-san, I've never seen anything like her before," she regarded the she-serpent with a delicate hand on her chin. Ah, such elegance! "Would you enlighten me?"

Sanji rubbed the back of his head, smoothing out imaginary tangles. "She's ah... it's a she-serpent, Robin-chan. Have you ever heard of those?"

By the expression that spread over her face, she had. He wasn't so surprised about it, the mysterious, blue-eyed beauty was like a living library. He was glad when Robin-chan took over explaining what a she-serpent was and realised that Zeff hadn't known some things. Much of it sounded familiar, either he'd heard it from Zeff or he'd noticed it through interacting.

Chopper had tried to talk with her after hearing that she was techincally a fish, thus one of the animal kingdom. The doctor didn't fare any better at communications as Sanji did, making Chopper draw conclusions that she was either unwilling to talk with him, unable to understand him or simply couldn't talk. Sanji suspected it was a summary of all those things.

Shizu was vehemently not going back into the ocean and by now she was making a good imitation of a fish out of water. While fishmen had both lungs and gills of what he'd seen, she-serpents only had the latter. Luckily her self-preservation seemed to win over and they all helped her back in once she'd stop fighting against them.

They'd taken it rather well when Sanji'd explained that she was just following him around, never going deeper into how he'd come across her. He also found out that Luffy _did_ know about her, only that Zoro'd drilled it into the captain's head not to talk about it.

All in all, a frazzling experience. The gut-wrenching feelings hadn't seized him like before, not until he realised that if they were going to follow where the log pose pointed, she wouldn't be able to come with them.


	39. Lacking

She clung to the wall of stone, staying as far away from the bottom as possible. She still wanted to leave the water. The tastes of the world above still lingered in her senses. The short, green plants had been soft and warm to the touch.

The very sunlike human was looking at her through the surface. It wasn't singing, which was good. The human had a habit of touching it's hair. She stared on and absently brought her hand up to hold a lock of her own.

A blotch of red appeared next to the very sunlike human and she recognised it as the important human. It's song was messy and all over the space it occupied. She sunk deeper and remembered why she wanted out of the waters in the first place. A deep tension she strongly disliked was spread out around her. It was stifling.

Then the very sunlike human sang. It was muffled and quiet. She distinguished the one sound it used for the strange human call for her, but she was already there. She knew the human knew.

Perhaps the humans were singing to each other about her? It would make sense. Dolphins did that. They all had their own notes that they used to tell each other apart. What the humans were singing about, she didn't know. Human songs were too rough and too narrow. They lacked order. All songs were driven by the same force, yet human songs barely had any of it. They were hollow and empty.


	40. Foreign

Something had happened to the odd little ship. The floor of the ocean had cracked and spouted out. The odd little ship was gone with the very sunlike human. Now the two large ships with many humans were not leaving her alone at all.

She was becoming very hungry. There was no fishfolk in these waters. The sunlike human was _gone_. She wanted out of the foreign sea. This was not hers. It was vast and old and comforting, but not hers.

The two large ships flanked her patiently. It was a pity the ships were big. She would've rolled them over and torn into the humans in a heartbeat. Maybe she would be able to drag one down if they came too close to the edges? There were many, one missing wouldn't be noticed.

When the sun had begun to rise from beyond the sea, she tasted human food in the water. She was confused. The very sunlike human wasn't there, so who had done it? Carefully she approached the slab of burnt flesh that bobbed just between sinking and floating. It polluted the water with the foul taste.

Gradually, the sea was left behind. The ships entered a new one. The oceanfloor was whole. She hunted the great school of big, colourful fish and continued ignoring the vile human food. It attracted the fishfolk, though.


	41. Remind

Sleep tugged at her and yet she refused to do so. Not yet. She didn't trust the water or the two large ships. They were still present. The bottom of the ocean was dark and murky and just what she needed. There were no beasts to bother her.

A small boat had decended into the water holding humans. The boat was big but nothing she wouldn't be able to take on. It fell easy and so she ate well. Most of the humans managed to scramble up the side of their nest. She didn't care, she already had food. They were being rather loud, like all humans were. These humans knew how to be prey.

An island came to view. It reminded her of The Cliff, being very tall. It reminded her of Leg made of ship, yellow hair and the very sunlike human. It reminded her that the odd little ship wasn't here. The world above the above was only meant for seagulls and their kin, to the white clouds and the sun.

The ships continued on and anchored on it's shores without her. She didn't go closer than the cove she found. It was small and she barely fit into it. All the fishfolk here were dull in colour, efficient and fast. She had no chance in catching any of them, though she made sure to show them she wasn't one to be eaten.

Then, she allowed herself to sleep.


	42. Christmas bonus, happy holidays

His life had begun surrounded by snow, but it had rarely been too cold for him. Reindeers were _made_ to live in snow. Then, he had become a monster.

The fluffy sea of clouds that went on as far as the eye could reach was a bit like banks of snow to Chopper. The little doctor had gotten used to warm climates after leaving his island.

Nobody liked monsters. Robin had told them what a she-serpent was, and that indeed sounded like one, but he couldn't forget the fear he'd seen in Shizu.

Fish were different from land creatures - animals, humans and birds. Firstly, there was a language barrier. He didn't speak fish and fish didn't speak mammal. Heck, fish didn't even use words to communicate, but he could always trust body language. Nature had engineered Shizu to look like a creepy mermaid and mermaids in themselves looked halfway human.

So no, he wasn't afraid of Shizu, even when she was supposedly a man-eating monster. Robin sure had a way with words...

All his musings were cut short when Sanji brought him a sweet drink. Then he looked back at the clouds. "I miss snow."

The chef followed Chopper's gaze. "Can understand that."

"You're from North Blue, right?" he looked up at the human. "Was there snow where you were born?"

"Well... yeah," Sanji had a drag from his cigarette. Chopper frowned at that, being so high up in the sky was already a problem for them to breathe. Smoking couldn't possibly be doing any favours here. "We had four seasons, but I remember winters being... nice."

Something occurred to the reindeer. He had heard some of Sanji's tumultuous story of how he came to live in a floating restaurant.

"How old were you when you left home?"

A single blue eye looked down at him, contemplative but thankfully not saddened or pissed off. "I... don't remember. I think I was..." he tilted his head and paused for a moment. "Six? Seven?"

"So young!?"

"Hehe, I guess," Sanji rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I've forgotten most of my time before I set out to the sea, but all those stories stuck with me."

"Like the story about Norland?" Chopper smiled and got a happy nod for reply.

Then, as he watched the young man, a boyish grin spread across his face. "Hey, have you ever heard of Saint Nicholas?"


	43. New ocean

There was always a rhythm to life, to _her_ life. It was dictated by the necessary actions to stay alive with some surprises on the side. The very sunlike human wasn't a need nor a surprise, but it had still been in her life. She needed the creature as much as she needed the sun.

The cove gave her enough cover for as long as she needed. She got rid of the white, unsightly human material once she deemed it useless. She no longer ached. She could go for a hunt now.

She explored her new ocean. The fishfolk didn't like her being around. There were large stones on the cold side of the island and a cluster of boats where the moon sunk. A king of the sea lived in a deep groove. It was no danger, a mellow creature with no great interest with her. The king gave her it's permission to stay as long as she didn't bother it.

Fishing wasn't what these humans lived off of. They had a couple of big ships that lied in wait within their nests. A strong current licked against the island, leaving the broken boats she saw to pile up. Perhaps it was this that prevented the humans to leave. Good. Humans belonged to their world.

The world above was not meant for her. The world above the above was not meant for humans.


	44. Anger

The king of the sea had seen more storms than she had. It had battled more enemies than she had. She could respect that. The king didn't want her hunting the humans, however, and it was something she disagreed with.

She had trouble catching the fish. They worked together to avoid her and escape, occasionally the prey even attacked her. It was distracting and annoying. This prey was as bad as the humans on the odd little ship, it didn't fear the beast among them. Hunger and frustration made her dangerous. She lashed at everything that came too close.

When she found the stray boat on it's way away from the island, she didn't only roll it over – she decimated it. The material tore under her touch, splinters and pieces falling around her down to the bottom of the ocean. The human was the small sort. It was being loud. At least it was afraid of her. She dragged the little human down with her and watched it fight for it's precious air.

That's what the humans get for trying to invade her world. The sea was not a place for them. Stupid prey was easy prey.

She hid away with her prize and devoured it. She didn't care if the king of the sea would know. There was a possibility it never would, no one to tell the king of the sea. She was always by herself.


	45. Hide and seek

Even when there hadn't been a clear schedule for how long they'd stay in the sky island, they'd been set back because of Navarone. Besides that, they still had to make it to the island their eternal pose was pointing at, Omafuri. The monkey brothers had offered to take Shizu to a place they could find, and the aforementioned island happened to be just around the corner. So to speak.

The brothers seemed to have a good stock of handy eternal poses on demand.

Sanji was having withdrawal on top of everything. He hadn't realised that he'd been running on half a pack of cigarettes through Skypiea, until the carton had gone empty. Shitty addiction. Shitty sky. Shitty Enel for hurting Robin-chan and Nami-san and _shitty snake_ for almost eating the redhead

And he was worried. As much as it flattered him that Shizu only ate food that he cooked, he knew that if she didn't eat human food, she'd turn to eat the humans instead. If she decided to attack a careless salvage-pirate from either of the brothers' crews, there was nothing he could do to protect her – and he wasn't sure if he should. He'd never had a dog, but he knew enough that if it decided to bite the owner's face off, it was often put down for it in the civilian lifestyle.

The she-serpent wasn't a dog nor tame _nor_ his pet. If one day she decided to eat the hand that fed her, he would most likely let that happen because Sanji doesn't hit ladies. Shizu was a fine lady. He'd probably just pull the hand away, they still were his most important tools in the kitchen afterall.

He kept an eye on the horizon for the island. The weather was truly lovely, he grinned stupidly as he thought about making a nice, light dessert for the girls. Maybe a mousse cake, or a vanilla tart and mango slices? Skypiea had given them some excellent if not strange ingredients, like the hard-shelled melons. He could make a smoothie out of that!

Only once had Sanji tried to make dessert for Shizu and she hadn't known what to do with it. It was the same with vegetables and anything that hadn't been boiled or stewed in with meat or fish. He'd concluded that she must've been completely carnivorous.

A bit like feeding Luffy.

Sanji had found out the hard way that she despised onions. A small smile tugged at his face when he remembered her emotionless stare, just seconds before the she-serpent had left him soaked from head to toe.

To these thoughts he drowned himself while working on the desserts. He shoved the gruesome mental pictures under all the good things he knew about the monster he adored.

Then, after a slow week with no cigarettes and no Shizu, Usopp spotted Omafuri through his telescope. The island looked nice and inviting, like he could find a cute little cafe to sit in with a bunch of pretty ladies.

Locating the she-serpent was much more harder than he'd anticipated. Sanji had tried calling her and waving raw beef in the water, going so far as to even cut his own leg and let that soak in. The salt stung of course, but not as much as the feeling he got when he began to realise he wouldn't find Shizu like this.

They asked the monkey brothers if they'd taken note where she was. Masira had been in a rather frosty mood when he told them that the cursed she-serpent _devilspawn_ had killed one of his better men, leaving all the Strawhats somewhat on edge for finding Shizu again.

All but one, that was. Luffy had without a pause declared that she was nakama and that she had to be found. The chef didn't miss the narrow look Zoro gave their captain. Well, the shitty Marimo could just go jump off a cliff into the sea during low tide.

It took a day, but they did find her, thanks to Chopper. He went around and asked the local seals if they'd seen the she-serpent around. The reindeer came back with word about an underwater cave some ways off the coast with a new resident fitting her description quite well.

She didn't even seem to recognise him when they went to pick her up.

For the whole night he sat there on a desolate rock under the stars. It was a strong reminder of those hungry days in his childhood, but this time he didn't have Zeff with him. Sanji filled the darkness with anything that came to mind, talking and hoping.

His ears prickled and he dared not look. He couldn't. If he did and she wasn't there, he'd just die. Through the flutter in his chest, Sanji kept a steady stream of low and soft words.


	46. The Moon

At first, she hadn't been sure. She recognised the ship with the strange figure, a tiny ship in comparison to everything. The human she found perched on a stone was familiar too. The human language was as foreign as always. The human was a bad singer though it wasn't very loud.

Ah, it was the very sunlike human, then. It wasn't very sunlike now. The night wasn't for the sun, that was why it fell beneath the sea each day. The human's hair was more like the pale of her colour. Everything touched by the moon was. That was how the eye in the sky made everything it's domain.

She was disappointed towards the human. It didn't even know she was there. Was it singing to the moon instead? To the stars? Did the moon claim the very sunlike human for itself? The moon couldn't do that, she knew. That was stupid. So why _was_ the sunlike human singing alone?

The Whale had done it. The Whale had been singing alone, ever without a pod or a mate. She didn't know what the lengthy song was for. She didn't understand these things, but she knew that the Whale was dead now. Maybe it was so that the other humans had chased the very sunlike human away or they had all died.

She would rather eat the very sunlike human than let it go to waste. Quick as she may, she trapped the very sunlike human.


	47. The Predator

Like always, the human didn't act like prey should. It didn't act like prey _at all_. The very sunlike human tried to tangle itself with her limbs instead of trying to get away. Her teeth sunk through the barriers and into it's flesh. Most prey was stupid, yes. It was like every time she thought she knew how stupid, they would prove her wrong. It was astonishing.

The very sunlike human sounded more like a dolphin now, with it's song full of broken chitters. It didn't mind her trying to kill it, apparently. Pathetic. Pathetic and ridiculous, absolutely. But food was food. She wriggled free. There was water on it's face and blood in her mouth.

She went very still when the human touched her head. It was silent now. It was staring at her. The moon was covering the sun away. She escaped the overly warm contact into the water, suddenly weary. The very sunlike human had never truly feared her. Now it dared to touch her. If something wasn't prey, then it was predator, yet it didn't act like a true predator either.

While the human headed towards the shore, she followed the trail of blood. It still hadn't learnt how to swim quickly. It was still faster than other humans she'd seen.

When day came and the very sunlike human regained it's golden colours, the king of the sea stirred. It tried to hunt her and attack the little ship, but the humans fended it off. It had been livid for she hadn't respected it's rule.


	48. Boats

The odd little ship was caught between two anchorchains. She could see it wouldn't be able to move away. The humans on land were frantic about it. The bigger ship must've been a predator. Like with the odd little ship, this one had a land creature as it's figure, and she had no idea what it was. It was red.

Then the humans... what were they doing? They had things made of ship that they were trying to strap together. They were making boats out of ships. It was curious. Was this how new ships were born? She had always thought they grew on land and were pushed to the sea when they were mature, like turtles. Turtles were tasty. They proved a challenge to break open with the thick shells. They were steady swimmers if not really that fast. Like ships.

She watched the boats being lowered to the water. Below the surface lurked a clumbersome construct and she didn't know what to think of it. There was no real comparison. If it was a ship indeed, it was not there to die. It was in waiting.

When the first boats sank, she went for a kill. The human was surprised but not afraid. It wasn't loud. It didn't struggle – until she tried to bite it. A strike to her head made her back up and reassess the situation from afar.

A memory of kelp tickled her. She couldn't place it. This human was stronger than her. It was dangerous. She would not take that risk. Instead, she headed for the more uncoordinated human flailing further away.


	49. Not hungry

Ice. She was not fond of ice. She had not forgotten the sluggish way her body refused to move. It was cold, it was uncomfortable. It made her tired even when she did not need sleep. It was not like snow. Ice was a barrier between her and the world above. There was nothing of importance beyond the sea, but her preferred prey came from land.

So she stayed away from the sudden raft of ice. A king of the sea had been trapped within. It didn't live for long. She watched how it's back end thrashed, trying to get free. It wasn't very big. Not being hungry, she ignored the dead king and made her way to the odd little ship.

It groaned before moving. It was not a sound she had heard from the ship before. She knew what it meant.

A familiar piece of bent metal fell from the ship. By habit, she picked it up. The sun hadn't fallen away yet, making everything yellow and orange and red. The human wasn't alone. A row of heads were looking at her. These were the very sunlike human's pod. She had no interest in them. They were singing to each other, sometimes overlapping.

The very sunlike human held the little disc of brittle stone and she tasted the air. Indeed, the human wanted to feed her again. She was assaulted by loud sounds and she retreated right underneath the water's surface. She watched how the important human attacked the very sunlike human for the food. She snarled, but let the human take it. She wasn't hungry.


	50. Shiny

No matter how deep she dived, she felt exposed. Something was keeping an eye on her. It started sometime after the sun floated back to the sky.

The bottom of the sea was dark sand. Small crabs scuttled around, searching. A glint picked her curiosity and she shoved sand around. She knew that some human things could trap sunlight and take it as deep as this. When she found the contraption, she was disappointed. She had already seen many of these things – a circle of fine chain with chunks of that special rock strewn on it. She'd once seen humans put them around their necks.

She tilted her head. Very few things she understood of humans, but this she did. Humans liked shiny things. Many of the fishfolk liked shiny things as well. That was why they so eagerly bit hooks.

The odd little ship was floating away. She had no need for decorations and thus left the circle of rocks and metals for the crabs. She'd never seen crabs have interest to them either. The light flickering into her domain made her glitter.

The eyes on her back didn't leave her. The water was warmer when she ascended. A dark figure loomed over the side of the little ship and she saw a human staring down at her. It wasn't the very sunlike human, no. This one was completely in black. Instantly, there was dislike. Unease. The human was looking at her. No doubt this one was a predator, yet it was not on the hunt. This human she could respect, even when it didn't act like proper prey.


	51. Made

For the first time in her life, she was able to sneak into a human nest. This was largely because it was full of waterways going this way and that. The humans here lived together with a species of fishfolk. These were a lot bigger than the others of their kind she'd seen. She wondered if they would be tasty.

Immensly curious, she swam by unconcerned. This was like a strange reef.

Everything consisted of narrow strips of stone for the humans to walk on, with the cliffside being riddled with square holes. They were not all meant for enterance, though, she quickly saw. These were covered in that hard but fragile substance that when broken into shards was incredibly sharp. She had cut herself on it once. The humans entered their hidden lairs through holes covered in flat pieces of ship.

Ships were made, she remembered. Made of _what_?

Too much to see. She wanted to see everything. All the sudden there was a flurry of bubbles inside her, under her skin. She had not felt so since the days her protective camouflage had faded. The anxious energy was not a bad thing. A fish pulling a tiny boat was startled and it tried to flee from it's humans. She darted underneath the boats and creatures to observe.


	52. A brutal meal for one

The massive city didn't keep them distracted for longer than a day, when Franky declared that their new ship was finished. Sanji was impressed when he saw it too – how the hell can five people build a brig sloop in three days? It had to be some sort of record in the history of building ships.

Finding Shizu wasn't too bad this time. Before the brief fieldtrip to declare open war against the world government, he'd last seen her swimming happily enough down in the canals. For a while he'd been worried that she'd been stranded somewhere in an isolated body of water. Like a kiddypool. That thought didn't bring up anything good.

The sea-serpent was very good with stealth. When Sanji had asked around, he'd been rewarded with bewildered stares and a few no's. Some kids had told him that a friend of a friend had sworn they'd seen a mermaid in the sewers. That was better than nothing. Then a man renting Yagara bulls for tourists had poured out a rant about his animals acting wierd all day long.

And then he'd come across a little girl who had wordlessly pointed down a street when he'd asked if she'd seen a wierd mermaid today.

He found out that the hardest part of leaving Water 7 behind was to drag Shizu out of the Yagara pen where she'd been gorging on the remains of a bull. The said bull had been at least three times her size. Taking in the battleground, he'd made an educated guess and say that the bull _three times her size_ had gone wild before it's death. There were morbid splatters all over the walls. She hadn't been able to drag it back to the water from where it had died on the concrete, and so the she-serpent was making regular awkward dunks into the pool to keep her gills wet.

Stubbornly, he'd ignored every single mental image of himself bleeding out on the stone instead.

Coaxing didn't work. She did take a long look when she realised she wasn't alone, but it seemed like his familiarity had ranked him "not worth my time". There were no second glances and words just rolled off of her like water from a duck's back. Not that much of a surprise.

Throwing her over his shoulder flickered through his mind, but there was no way he'd be able to do that. Shizu would've fought him for her freedom, and if he dropped her, she might've gotten hurt. That was not how to handle a lady.

Even when it wasn't particularily ladylike to be covered in blood.

Speaking of ladies, Robin-chan was finally back. It filled him with such a relieved warmth that he'd expected to start boiling. _She was home and she was safe._ Sanji was sure that even when covered in blood, Robin-chan would still remain heart-stoppingly beautiful and wonderful~!

Shizu was beautiful too. It was an innocent, eerie sort of beauty. Oh look at her, she just tilted her head! Shizu-chan was so cute when she was confused!

Conviniently, he omitted the fact that she had no facial expressions. The head tilt had been because of Chopper and Nami-san walking in on the scene. They had both gone green when they saw the state of the Yagara pen.

"So this is where you were," she'd muttered.

"Did she do this all by herself!?" the reindeer had scooted behind the gorgeous redhead, his voice all but a squeak.

Lo and behold, Shizu had not given a crap.

They had ended up waiting for the she-serpent to finish her dinner. Chopper had suggested that they try and grab a piece of meat and lure her away so they could wrestle her down. Sanji had pointed out that she could've suddenly develop a taste for reindeer and turn on him if they tried that. He didn't mention that she might've just as well try and sink her teeth in either him or Nami-san, and that was not pleasant. He had experience about it. Afterall, she'd never shown much interest in their little doctor. That was somewhat of a comforting thought.

At present, Sanji was standing in front of a wall made of glass. Behind it was a large amount of water and some nicely arranged sea plants to give the tank a more natural look. Franky had said that they could always have fresh fish this way, but besides that, the blond could see another possibility.

They would never, ever leave Shizu behind again. That thought was churning in his arms like a thousand adrenaline rushes. He wondered if his face would be left permanently with a smile. Oh god, he'd be like Luffy, then. Sanji found it disturbing that he'd been comparing so many things that were "like Luffy" these days.

Even the stinging bitemark on his shoulder couldn't hamper the giddyness. He could still feel it very acutely under the bandages, though. The injury wasn't life threatning and he could take care of it himself well enough, no need to bother Chopper with it. It _had_ been more or less his own fault anyway.

He left to find Franky, to ask him if it was possible to leave some sort of underwater handhold, you know, just for the heck of it. No, no, definitely not because they were followed by a she-serpent on regular basis.


	53. The new ship

The odd little ship had come to the end of it's journey. The humans had thankfully realised it. She hadn't expected them to burn it. Fire was not something she had seen before, but the Whale had known what it was. He had told her to be weary of fire. She hadn't tried to touch it. She could feel the heat from where she put her face above.

Fire was confusing to her. It danced and flickered and touched everything in it's way, but everything went right through it. It was like air – it couldn't pierce the water. It made fire unnecesseary.

Down in the bottom of the sea lay the motionless ship. No crevice was left unexplored. There was nothing in there. She could still imagine the very sunlike human wandering about doing human things. The odd little ship was not much different from other ships she'd seen.

The new ship had stronger colours than the odd little ship. It had a strange creature on the front. The creature was the colour of the very sunlike human's hair. Even when she didn't know what it represented, she found it acceptable. The ship wore the colours of danger, those that told others it was poisonous to eat. That was a colour for both prey and predator.

She found a curious hole at the side of this new ship. How did it not sink? But the hole was not there to fill the ship with water. It looked like it was there deliberately. It closed up and yawned open. Was it alive? She dared not peek in, in case the humans were around.


	54. The green human

Humans were falling to the sea. They were all intruders on the new ship. Intruders were not taken kindly. These were from the two sharklike ships that had blocked the new ship from moving. She hated these humans. They hunted in packs and they hunted the very sunlike human.

Blood in the water. It's taste surrounded her and so she darted towards the source. Ah, soft and tender.

Something was rapidly sinking. It was not one of the humans. She went in a circle around it, coming to a conclusion that it was the creature from the cold island. She could remember that it was unable to swim, having always been returned to the ship by one of the humans. Sometimes it was the very sunlike human, most often it was not.

She could see one of them now, swimming in long strokes. This one was the green one, yes. Her circle grew larger and the human sunk faster towards the little creature. The human was not one she wished to confront. It wasn't a terribly fast swimmer like all humans. It was still faster than the very sunlike human.

The human was weary of her. Like before, it was green. She had time to look at it. Maybe she would remember it from now on. Green. So green. It stared at her and she stared back. _Hunt me, and I will hunt you._


	55. Caught

She watched the important human catch fishfolk with another human. She was fairly sure that they were not able to eat all that. They even managed to fool a shark. Then again, sharks were not very smart.

With a flick of her tail she was out of the water. She didn't make it to the edge of the ship. It was that much higher than she expected. Besides that, the ship was also much faster than the previous one. Her underside smacked against the ship before sliding back down.

This time she came close and something caught her. It was the important human. It's head was too close to her. She snarled and the human flinched. It didn't let go. Instead, she found herself from the deck of the ship. The material was familiar to her, soft and hairy. Tiny plants. It reminded her of the green human. That was a confusing thought.

The important human was there. It sounded much like a dolphin. The human was way too close. She bit it in warning, the human becoming silent. It was looking at her. Why was it looking at her? Then it showed teeth in the same way the very sunlike human did.

And then she needed to get back to the water. Her tail was heavy and unwieldy. And then the important human just... grabbed her. That was all sorts of wrong! She squirmed like never before. Soon, she was falling down the side of the ship and disappearing to the depths of the abyss.


	56. Luffy Bonus

"I can't believe she did that," Usopp was frowning. "I can't believe _you_ did that!"

"Shishishi, it doesn't hurt at all!" He was being clever. Sure, it didn't hurt, it just stung a little bit. Usopp was inspecting the bitemark on his shoulder while he held on to his hat, trying to rub it clean. He had been wrestling big fish all afternoon, so the fishy slime left by Shizu's skin blended right in. The grass on the other hand had a sprawling splash of shiny goop. He hoped Sanji or Nami wouldn't notice it before it dried away. He was so not cleaning that up!

The wierd mermaid was kind of cool in his opinion, he didn't really get why Zoro was so uptight about her. Robin and Chopper were constantly telling him that Shizu was a fish, but she didn't really look like a fish. Mermaids weren't fish, right? But...

"Hey, Usopp. Do you think she's really a fish?"

Usopp, trying to wipe up his shoulder from the viscuous mess to tie a bandage around it, didn't even look up from his job. "I don't know. Robin's really smart, right? Creepy, but right."

Luffy hummed and nodded in thought. He drew a sharp breath when Usopp's jostling had the injury throbbing. It wasn't that deep, but still. The sniper was still muttering about something under his breath that contained the word 'creepy' many times.

He knew Robin was really smart. Like, super smart! So, if she said Shizu was a fish, then Shizu must've been a fish.

"She's the wierdest fish I've ever seen!" he grinned and chuckled. Fish needed water to live and Shizu had been in big trouble when she'd decided to jump aboard. Luffy had just tried to help her. Biting him was a bit rude of her.

"Uh... yeah, I guess so," Usopp nodded. "She looks like she's never been in the sun."

Which was right. Shizu was so pale it wasn't difficult at all to see her moving under the ship on a clear day, or even if it was a bit cloudy. Unless she swam deeper, and then he couldn't see her anymore.

"Sanji really likes her."

"Sanji likes everything even remotely female."

Except that she might've not even been a she in the technical sense. It was one of the things Robin had said; " _She-serpents all look like human women from the waist up, even the males. Shizu might be a boy for all we know._ "

To say she looked like a human wasn't much. In the brief brawl with the wierd mermaid-fish Luffy had noted that her hair wasn't really hair at all but long, thin strands of something else. It was the slimiest thing he had ever touched. Her mouth opened up way more than a human's should with two rows of sharp teeth (that could be counted from his shoulder now) and her eyes were completely black. Maybe that was what made her creepy in Usopp's opinion? The fin that started right where her butt should've been had sharp spines too, but the rest of her scales were nice and smooth.

"Her boobs were really hard."

Usopp bopped him on the head for that.


	57. Belong

Water became air. She couldn't swim in it. It blocked the sun and made her less noticable. It was not much help. She still shone like the moon. It was troublesome.

There was little life here. The fishfolk were often the colour of stone and shadow. Nothing swam in the open with her. She hunted them anyway. Not tasty. While hunting, she saw a massive ship drifting in the distance. The fishfolk didn't pay attention to such. It was slow, it was not meant to sail anymore. She could see that it belonged underneath the waves. This ship reeked of old death.

She saw the important human fling itself over the gap between the ships. It had dragged two other humans with it. She thought one of them was the very sunlike human.

Bones were bones. They were left when the last of the fish were done with dead things. Usually bones didn't move. Usually bones didn't live. These did, and it bothered her much. This structure of bone was not supposed to be. It was much like the ship it had been on. They did not belong.

Sea was always the sea. She belonged in the sea. This was not a sea where she belonged. She had left her sea behind. The structure of bone hovered between her world and the above. It was part of them both. This was where it was supposed to be. That was where it was instead.


	58. Happy Valentine's

On Baratie, there were days when everyone decorated the ship and the cooks worked on something special for the customers. Sanji personally favoured the time right between winter and spring. Snow was still falling softly on the back of the floating restaurant, but he had already seen flowering plants in the market.

Sanji had seen all those beautiful ladies come in, absolutely glowing with happiness - usually accompanied by men in fine suits. The boy didn't have his own suit, but a striped tie around his neck was for the festivities.

The menu was even more elegant than on a normal working day. All kinds of luxurious ingredients had been bought and prepared. One of the tables was covered with small, pink pastries and chocolate-covered fruit. He was quite proud of his handiwork.

Towards the end of the day he had put aside a plate of roasted duck and one of those cute pastries, hoping no one would miss them. Once he was sure he himself wouldn't be needed, Sanji slipped out to the deck and looked around for the wierd mermaid.

Her head rose from the still surface like a ghost. It didn't startle him anymore these days, it was just the way she was. A smile came unbidden across his face.

"Hey there! I brought you something really nice today, I hope you'll like it!" and he put down the plate by the edge. "We had a Lovers' day special menu on today. You wouldn't believe it, but there were so many pretty ladies around today. Err, not that they're prettier than you! I think you're the prettiest of them all. Then again, you're not a human, so that's not fair competition..."

She seemed to like the duck. It was another plate lost to the sea, but he only sighed. He would've used paper plates if it hadn't been rude to do that. Baratie was a good restaurant and Sanji doubted it even had paper plates anywhere.

It was when he presented the dessert he began to think that she wasn't one for sweet things. Her stare was as blank as ever, but that wasn't anything new. It was just that she stared at it for a very, very long time.

"It's got apricot and raspberry jam with-"

She poked the plate, stared some more and disappeared without a sound. Sanji was left sitting there for a moment before the wierd mermaid returned. He scooted backwards when she pushed herself halfway out of the water to leave a bundle of seaweed in front of him. The pastry was unfortunately sprayed with salty water and ruined.

After that he didn't see her for the rest of the night, but the boy still sat there staring dumbly at the dripping seaweed. What an odd one.


	59. Rope

The new ship was stuck in a net inside a bay, trapping her as well. She should've been more careful. The seabed was smooth and tasted like metal and algae. Some clams and fish had made their way in as well.

She stared hard at a piece of white rope. It swayed right above her, nearly touching the water's surface. It looked flimsy. How hadn't the ship been able to get free from this? And then she poked it. Her limb was stuck at the end of the rope and she understood. The rope gave some when she tried to pull away. Good. She couldn't swim away, though. She tried to pull harder. When that didn't work, she grabbed the rope with her other hand to yank the first one free.

That... did not go well. She proceeded to pull on the rope, sinking down as deep as she could. Wisened from her mistake, she did not go with her next idea to try and bite through it. The sounds of humans approaching had her diving away, yet she couldn't go far. She had a deep hatred for this rope.

What she saw were not humans. They were all dead, for one thing. They were dead and moving and they were all wrong. This was so much worse than the moving bones. She struggled more. A creature wrapped in white with many crablike legs decended down the rope. She watched it through the water.

A black leg creeped closer to where she was stuck to the rope. She tugged violently and it toppled over into the water. She crushed it easily. It oozed something black and disturbing.


	60. Introducing the family

To say he was livid was an underestimation. He was _furious_. Some shitty zombie had the _gall_ to trick his beautiful Nami-swan walking down the aile!? Sanji was in flames, all sorts of curses simmering across his tongue – never to leave his mouth. There was no way he'd subject Robin-chan to such language.

They'd all become aware and accepting of Shizu's existance, of which he was immensly greatful for. Sanji had been right when he'd speculated that Luffy would be all over her. He didn't know if the captain had tried to pet her yet, but he did have a prominent bitemark for a while. Stupid Marimo gave it away, looking at it, then frowned and asked Chopper to take a look at it. Luffy had just laughed and said that the she-serpent really didn't like being picked up. What the hell had he been doing to her?

He had committed a day of his life to make proper introductions. Shizu hadn't been all that happy about it, only peeking out of the water for a few seconds to see the crowd of people huddled in the shopping boat's dock. She hadn't left, which was encouraging, but most of her was still outside the small artificial bay.

Luffy was the only one who had no reservations about the she-serpent. His easygoing smile had lifted something off of Sanji's chest, while not completely erasing it. Usopp, Nami-san and Chopper had all been a respectful distance from the water, though he knew that if she wanted so, Shizu would have no trouble jumping that. She was really something.

Robin-chan and the swordsman had been there as well. She'd looked like she'd been observing something much less harmless and the dumbass like he'd wanted to be anywhere else than present.

Franky had seen mermaids even before joining the crew, but he'd still been curious. The cyborg had been leaning so close over the water the cook was surprised his nose didn't come up wet. Oh well, at least he could replace parts with metal if she decided to sample the appetizers.

Huh, he should've been less casual about that thought than he really was. With everyone knowing she was there, it gave him a safer feeling that no one was going to get taken off guard. Then again... if she wanted to eat someone, they wouldn't be prepared. He'd need to make sure everyone knew it.

After he'd save Nami-san from that pissbag zombie.

"Isn't that Shizu down there?" the sharpshooter was looking over the railing. "Uh, I think she's stuck."

They were very careful when they released her. Cutting the sticky web was messy and near impossible, but at least it burned nicely. If the whole spiderweb was set ablaze, they'd have a whole new plethora of problems. Zoro, that asshat, really didn't want his swords to be covered in the goop left behind by the strings, so fire it was.

Shizu ducked away immediately, coming back up to peer at them with half her face still under. Looking at her, he realised that she didn't blink at all. Hah, another creepy factor to the mysterious beast. Then she was gone and everyone reminded him that Nami-san was in danger.

That bastard would wish he was never born.


	61. Trapped

She remembered the place where the kings of the sea lived. That had been an unmoving place. It was eerie. The sea was supposed to move. The waters around her now didn't stay still at all, churning and shaking. It was like a storm in a river, or in one of those round human things made of ship. _What_ were ships made of?

The poisonous ship swayed in the high waves. If it hadn't been stuck to the white ropes, it would've left shore. She didn't like the rope. The humans had freed her. She was beginning to get hungry and hoped to find something to hunt. The fishfolk had gone into hiding when the sea started turning.

Something massive was on the island. It was loud, the song slow. She couldn't escape the sounds. Agitated and confused. Trapped. Something was happening. She knew the barrier was too tall for her to jump over, but it didn't stop her from trying to get out of the trap. Again and again, she sped out of the water and hit the stone. When the sun suddenly appeared, she sank to the bottom. She was tired.

Out. Out. Out. She needed to get out. There was not enough water, she was feeling ill. Another jump up towards the barrier. She was aching. Her fin bristled and her gills were flared.

Eventually it stopped. She wasn't calm. She still wanted out. The fishfolk were scared. The sun shone too brightly after the darkness.


	62. Quiet

The humans being humans didn't take their ship and leave the trap immediately when it was broken. A current flowed through the gap and she among the fishfolk fled. She swam in a straight line _away_ from the island. There was equally water above and below. The oceanfloor was littered with dead ships. One such remained by the trap. A dead ship for a dead human. A dead human that wasn't dead. Bones. She recognised her fear. The trap had been too much.

She wanted away from humans. They made no sense. Too many signs of both prey and predator. It was as if the moon was in place of the sun. Day was no longer day and the night was lacking. Now the dead was the living.

Vague fury. Her movements were stiff. She wanted to be left alone. She needed to eat. There was nothing in this sea that she could go after, only open waters. Something was pushing against the inside of her head. Trapped.

She could've kept swimming. She didn't want to go back. She started swimming in a large circle instead. Downwards were crabs and clams, she hadn't eaten those in a long while. Crabs were always so rude.

It was quiet. She listened to it. The trap hadn't been quiet at all. Now her blood had settled. She shattered many, many clams and tore legs out of crabs. She might have done that for other reason than hunger, but she ate until she could no longer. That was fine.


	63. Want

Nothing had changed. The poisonous ship was still there, next to the dead ship. The sun left nothing hidden. The trap didn't seem so dangerous anymore.

There were humans on the shore. They were looking at the water. Were they looking for fish? The fishfolk hadn't gathered here. They didn't like this place. It had been a trap. The taste of scared fishfolk still lingered. Something had changed since the very sunlike human had come here. The taste would fade with new water as long as the trap was held open. Would it close then again?

She was careful. She didn't go any closer least she be seen. These humans didn't look that tasty, but were they to risk the sea, she would claim them.

Where was the very sunlike human? She hadn't seen it. She hadn't even seen the rest of it's pod or the tiny creature. They must've been on the island. At least she could hear life again.

She stilled and rolled in the water. Not just life. She could hear the note, the one that the humans called her with. It must've been the very sunlike human. Or maybe they'd noticed her and were now warning each other of her presence. She retreated until she was out of the trap and past the barriers. She wanted to find the very sunlike human.


	64. Smoldering

Far away from the trap, the ship was sailing again. She had accepted the very sunlike human's offering of food and was now holding on to the bottom of the ship. Unusual but helpful that there was a bar of iron attached.

The humans were fishing again. There was no fishfolk around though, so they would not be able catch any. She could see the hooks gleaming. Bits of food were pierced in them, reminding her of the way humans ate with their bent pieces of metal. Maybe that was how they had come with this idea.

She could see the head full of golden hair leaning over the edge of the ship. It hadn't gone away yet. She could see a trail of darkened air rise from the human. It was a constant thing, she had learned. Perhaps it was because of the likeness with the sun that caused it. The sun was searing in large amounts, so it was no surprise that the very sunlike human would sometimes smolder. Though she had not seen fire much, she knew that the air would often darken like this.

It called out. So it had seen her. The top of her head met with the world above. Instantly, the human began singing. With a tilt of her head she protected herself from it. The water blocked out most of the human's song. She watched carefully at the human's face, searching for that colour she knew was in it's eye. It was facinating.


	65. Screech

The sun pierced the sea. She did not need it. It happened anyway. With the new day came a new sound. It was worse than the humans singing and she couldn't escape it.

There was a faint memory from before the Whale died. A human was sitting on the edge of sea and sand, on a rock. It had something made of ship. _What were ships made of?_ The human touched it and made the most _horrible_ screech.

She knew what it was that made the sound. She knew what it looked like. If she found it, she would destroy it. The humans seemed to like the sound. Humans were strange. They tried to mimic the horrible screech to their best ability. It was just slightly more pleasant than the screech. They were being very loud. She did not like it.

She could tell apart the very sunlike human's howling from the other humans. It was convinient. She still didn't like it. Her scales were falling off every time she moved. It was that horrible.


	66. Crabs

Human contraptions had overtaken the bottom of the ocean. They were not ships or anything left by them, but it was something else. They were like the worms in the deepest pits of the sea. These things connected the island up above to the oceanfloor. Even the island was strange. It resembled a large crab with long legs standing up and reaching towards the world above. Crabs were rude.

There were lots of humans about. She saw many ships. They had flocked around the crablike island much like they had done with the fish headed ship. Was this another human feeding area? So many humans. She searched for any opportunity to catch one, but the ships were big.

And then, as if a predator had announced itself in the midst of it's prey, the ships fled. The crablike island shook. It's legs groaned where they were anchored. The warm waters underneath her swirled and mixed with the cold. Wierd island.

She watched the humans scurry and waited. One was bound to fall. She wondered if she could take one with her to the very sunlike human's nest. No one would notice her meal in the hole that didn't fill with water. The humans on the poisonous ship didn't go there much. All she needed was to wriggle through the narrow opening that didn't close completely.

She watched the glowing seafloor. Molten stone and water did not exist together silently.


	67. Some rules

"Sanji-kun, would you come over here for a moment?" Nami-san's sweet voice was calling from the galley door. He had been doing laundry after their hectic vacation. Lots of towels to hang to dry. The cook had been stealing glances at the upper deck where the girls' bikini still waited to be taken inside.

He nearly skipped inside, but when stepping to the kitchen his previous thoughts about some alone-time with the navigator were banished. Everyone was present.

"Uh, what is this, Nami-san?"

Luffy had a small, concentrated frown on his face. "This is an interview!"

"No, Luffy! I told you, it's _intervention_!" Usopp kicked his captain under the table.

"Hold on, what intervention? ...you're not taking away my smokes, are you?" his eyes narrowed dangerously.

That was not what they wanted to talk about, no. He wished they had.

Sanji didn't remember half of the things they brought up and the rest seemed like they were pointing out the obvious. Of course he cooked for Shizu! He had always done that and would keep doing until he died. What was the problem with that? Yes, he stayed up later than others because he wanted some alone time with his precious she-serpent. He decided not to say anything about the fact that sometimes the dawn had snuk up on him and he hadn't bothered to go sleep at all.

And then was the matter of Shizu's recent tendency to stash _things_ down in the shopping boat's dock. Robin explained about the half-eaten human torso like she was talking about the weather and he was thankful to hear that only Franky had seen it besides the lady.

Seems like that was the crate that sunk the merchant's ship. Whatever happened to everyone being alright with the she-serpent?!

"Sanji... she is dangerous," Usopp finally said, a serious frown on his face. "It's only a matter of time before she bites someone else."

"She bit me once," their captain, very unhelpfully, reminded them. It was his own fault for manhandling her! Then Zoro recounted an incident that had happened back during the Davy Back fight.

A twitch formed on his forehead, the side covered by his hair. His own bitemark didn't hurt anymore unless he deliberately pressed on it.

Nami-san's brow furrowed lightly. "Don't take me wrong, Sanji-kun, but do you have a sort of obsession with her?"

The word 'obsession' felt so ugly he could hardly believe she'd said it. His beautiful Nami-san.

Before he had a chance to form sentences, Chopper cut in firmly. "We wouldn't say anything about this, but it's getting very unhealthy. Something has changed."

"Nothing's changed!" he blurted out with a little more heat than was necesseary.

"The shirt had white and red stripes," Robin suddenly said. "The unfortunate man down in the dock. One day, it could be me, or Nami-san, or you."

"She is quite scary, isn't she?" Brook's skeletal fingers drummed against his teacup. So far, he hadn't really spoken anything. He hadn't been around for very long and hadn't seen her in all her glory, but he'd been told enough stories to be watchful. Sanji knew that Shizu didn't like Brook that much.

"She's not scary," the cook groused. "We've face far more dangerous things and one pretty mermaid doesn't really do it."

"She-serpent," Chopper corrected.

"Whatever. I've known her since I was a kid and she's never tried to eat me."

"Yet."

"Shut _up_ , marimo!"

Nami-san slapped the table a few times to get their attention before the bickering could escalate further. "Here's what's going to happen. For starters, Sanji-kun, you need to stop feeding her. You'll be out of the watch cycle with a curfew and you won't, uh, _summon_ her again. Understood?" All blood had escaped his face and his eye had gone wide. " _Understood_ , Sanji-kun?"

"U-understood, Nami-san."

He felt cold and conflicted.


	68. Easter bonus

"Look at these things! Aren't they adorable?"

"Yohohoho! They're so tiny!"

"How do you think they got here?"

A small, wooden box sat on Robin's lap with a hand towel folded inside. You could periodically hear happy chirping as each of them took turns petting the fluffy, yellow chicks. They were indeed tiny.

"I tend to keep the next morning's breakfast eggs on the counter," Sanji mused, sitting next to the archeologist."It's very possible some of them hatched."

Chopper's eyes bugged out. "You monster! You were going to eat them!?"

"Obviously not anymore," Nami interfered. "They're just so _cute!_ "

"Yes yes, we heard you already."

"Shut up, grumpy marimo!"

Robin put the box on the ground when the baby birds started getting restless. It would be shame if they fell and hurt themselves. They watched with fond smiles how their new nakama tumbled through the grass on their very first adventure under their watchful eye. The reindeer didn't tell them what they were saying, but judging by the giggles it must've been silly. Luffy was imitating their waddly walking style and soon enough he had five little followers dogging his footsteps.

"Look! Look! I'm their captain!"

"I think they believe you to be their mother," Robin chuckled. "This is quite sweet."

With a wide grin, Luffy scooped one up and deposited it on Zoro's head. He was unaware of it, deep in slumber against the ship's railing.

"Ahahahahaha! Chicks on a patch of spring grass!"

"Whoah! You're right!"

They were soon piling up more baby birds on his head, trying to fit them all there. It wasn't even difficult.

Nami perked up from her place on the bench. "The wind is picking up, there's going to be rain clouds on us in... 12 minutes. Sanji-kun, could you go pick up the laundry?"

"Yes, Nami-swaaaan!"

"Hey, careful or they're going to-"

Too late. A gust of wind had blown over them just like Nami had warned them, sweeping up the little birds. Luffy and Chopper managed to catch most of them, but the one Usopp went after was already beyond his reach. Luckily the bird was light enough that it floated merrily on the waves, besides the distressed cheeping.

"It floats!"

"Ah! It floats!"

"Phew, I thought it was a goner!"

A pale head appeared out of the water, right next to the chick.

"Oh no."

 _Chomp._


	69. Sometimes

Her food was gone. The hole that didn't make the ship sink was clear of it and she wondered if the very sunlike human had found it anyway. She didn't think much it, there was plenty of fishfolk here. The very sunlike human was gone that day. Sometimes it was like that. The humans did human things that she was not interested in. A sunken ship drew her attention and she searched it for delicious surprises.

Sometimes she found still reflections. They were imprintations of things that looked into them, or so she was told. Humans left them behind on sunken ships. She saw no fancy in that. This ship had many of these. She had seen them trapped under that same fragile substance that became sharp after breaking. Some reflections were empty or faded.

It was a concept she couldn't even begin to understand. Sometimes... it just was like that.

She didn't care for them and so didn't dwell on it. It was a human thing. When the dark had passed and the sun was beginning to surface, she dared watch it. The world above was strangely coloured. She couldn't see blue anywhere. Only the sun. Sometimes it was like that. The screeching wasn't very loud.


	70. Figures

The sea was roiling, throwing high waves up close to the surface. She could see the poisonous ship. It was doing well.

She let the currents take her. There was a good taste in the water, reminding her of the fishfolk that were human. She could remember the taste of them. A shudder went through her. Maybe there were more of them in these waters? The taste was far away. It was riding on the currents, coming from somewhere deep below. She hadn't seen the seafloor in three sleeps.

Yet she had not forgotten that they were dangerous. Would the fishfolk that were human come after the humans on the ship? Perhaps they would catch one... and then... Things that were to come was another thing her mind did not easily linger on. She had a sudden craving for the fishfolk that were human.

She watched something fall into the sea. It was barely visible, but it was sinking fast. One of the very sunlike human's pod had been careless again. Not much of a surprise. It happened a lot. The thing could do nothing against the storm. She circled the dark figure and could vaguely recall having seen it before. Maybe.

The human watched her in turn. It wasn't afraid. Together they floated before another human came to reclaim what the sea had wanted. It wasn't the very sunlike human. She darted away as the rescue approached. Her skin itched.


	71. Fever

She circled the poisonous ship. The humans had dived deep in with their boat made of metal that sunk but didn't die. It had looked like a shark. It had been chased by a king of the sea. The king of the sea was big and white.

There was something on the ship that made the air taste wonderful. She wasn't even hungry, yet the craving was hot through her own blood. She cricled the ship silently. It reminded her of the big human on the very warm and green island. Her mind jumped to the green human. It went back to the very sunlike human, which she hadn't seen since the last it fed her. Maybe the human had died.

Her head rose above the water. There was a figure leaning against the side of the ship. It wasn't the very sunlike human. She kept her mouth open in hopes to taste the air better. Ah, it was... it was... she had no words. They were useless. Words are useless.

She strained to rise higher up until her entire human part was exposed to the sun and the wind. Her gills were starting to dry. She didn't _care_ because there was something up there that she _wanted._

The figure looked down with a shout. She didn't pay much attention to it. The human stumbled away from her sight. Good prey. She didn't dive.


	72. The song

The ship had moved and anchored where it was shallower. She wanted back to the deep waters. The taste was there. She could find that taste stronger coming from the ship now.

She could hear sounds. They were being loud – the very sunlike human especially. She could tell it's voice apart from the others. Some voices were high, some were low, some went from high to low in moments. If she didn't know better, she could've said there was a dolphin up there. A very upset dolphin.

Her head tilted as she listened. Huh. If she listened carefully, it might've sounded like a song. Maybe. Not really. She could pretend. If it was a song, it wasn't a very good one. Discord. Unhappy. The next she knew, the very sunlike human jumped over the edge.

The sudden appearance startled her to sink in deeper to the water. The very sunlike human looked around and saw her. It swam towards her. Why did it do that? Was it a prey or a predator now? She retreated from the human. She wouldn't be taken by surprise. The human was stubborn. She could see the blue in it's eye.

She swam in a small circle around the human. It was still looking at her. It wasn't doing anything. Then it showed teeth. It wasn't the same as usual. The eye closed tightly. The human was going to need air, she knew. Curiously it didn't go. Had it come to be prey? Stupid human. No, it wasn't that. Did it want something from her? She had nothing to give. Didn't they have enough fish already?


	73. Empty

It was a night. She had slept twice. The ship hadn't moved anywhere during it. She was aware that the source of the good taste was still there. She hadn't hunted and was so becoming hungry. The fishfolk was gone. Soon, she would need to leave as well. Last of the horrible sound had faded away.

Something fell into the water. It was a piece of metal familiar to her. She picked it up and approached the side of the ship. The very sunlike human was there. It didn't sing. The human had human food with it. Maybe she wouldn't need to hunt afterall. Burnt fish fell next to her. She dived away with it.

The human was still there and still not singing. The human wasn't smoldering either. There was no moon against the sky. There was no sun in the very sunlike human's hair. It was empty. She didn't need them anyway. Too bright.

It was looking at her. Could it see in the dark? Some creatures couldn't, like humans. The very sunlike human had been acting strange lately, more so than usually. Perhaps it was ill. Humans didn't belong among the waves.

Ah, it made a sound. A quiet, flat note. She stayed to see if it was going to do more noises. It didn't. The very sunlike human left her alone.


	74. It's Love

He _knew_ he was living in denial. He knew what kind of creature the she-serpent was and still refused to see anything wrong with her. Tonight Sanji was supposed to have watch duty, but due to recent adjustments, he was snuggled into his hammock with eyes wide open. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep.

So, instead of sleeping or doing anything actually useful, he thought of Shizu.

Caimie was the cutest thing he'd ever seen and a mermaid on top of that. She was the first mermaid he'd ever seen, a proper mermaid. Sanji compared the mental image of Shizu to the one of Caimie. They were as different as a fox and a rabbit.

It was an ironic comparison and something he couldn't just ignore. He was... decently fine with everyone on the ship being in proximity with Shizu. She hadn't tried to outright eat any of them, ever. Just an appetizer from the shitty captain, and he wasn't even too bothered by it. She wasn't the only creature in the world that had tried to eat him, anyway.

Apparently, mermaids were the greatest delicacy to she-serpents.

Their newest travel companions had told them that the she-serpents were an ancient, supposedly extinct species that many still feared among the merfolk community. It was like the boogyman, a story told to every single child if they didn't behave. The she-serpents were almost a myth.

And now they had brought one near the fishman island, not knowing the danger it placed on the underwater world.

It made Sanji feel bad. He loved mermaids to bits, but he also loved Shizu. And his crew. There had been a big fight just yesterday when he'd lost it due to another cigarette shortage, finding himself from the eye of a shitstorm. Zoro, Usopp and Nami-san had been the most vocal against him and he'd done his everything to calm down for the lady's sake. That had ended up with him jumping off the side of the ship. He wasn't sure wether he'd tried to cool his head, prove a point to the others that Shizu was harmless or just to find some comfort for himself.

She hadn't bitten him, that was a good start. She had been more bewildered. Ah, that little tilt in her head was so cute! The she-serpent had been so close he could feel her brush against his arm and leave behind a glittering trail of loose scales.

What had that been about? Was she getting ill? He would need to make her something nutritious, then... But he wasn't allowed to feed her anymore. He'd done that once in secret.

They had to leave for the archipelago soon, yet they hadn't come up with a solution about Shizu. Sanji didn't like to be fighting with half the crew, he loved his nakama to bits. What made it worse was that he _knew_ why they were frustrated and pissed at him. They were worried for his wellbeing and respected him enough not to just hogtie him into the cleaning closet and take off.

Shizu would most likely follow them anyway.

Love. Such an incredible, cruel thing. He loved, with his whole heart when it was possible. He loved Shizu and he loved his crew and he loved the mermaids. Sanji couldn't bring the she-serpent to the Fishman island, which meant he wouldn't be able to take her to the New World with them.

Sanji poured all his faith into an idea.


	75. The Tricked

She was angry. No, furious. The very sunlike human had _tricked her_!

As much as she tried, the barrier wouldn't break. She could see her reflection on it's surface. It shuddered with every slam she made against it. It didn't give. It was very smooth. It was _hard_ and she was beginning to ache. She swam through the entire space and it wasn't very big. In defiance she whacked her tail against it. Shudder. Not breaking. The other fishfolk didn't dare come near.

The very sunlike human was a cunning creature. It had lured her in. _FOOLISH!_ It had dropped a piece of soft material down to the sea. She hadn't even thought. _SO FOOLISH!_ It had tasted amazing. Like the humans that were fishfolk, but prey.

The barrier just wouldn't break. Her gills flared. The fin stood up – it hadn't gone down since the green human had grabbed her. She had bit it. It had hissed. The creature disliked her very much. She could feel it. There was no blue in it's eyes. Another lap around the barrier. The very sunlike human had been less rough than the green human. The green human was stronger of the two. More dangerous. _But the very sunlike human had_ _ **tricked her.**_


	76. The Broken Hearted

_Forgive me._

So they helped the pretty mermaid, fought a bunch of flying fish (what the shit) and saved one of Nami-san's old tormentors.

 _Forgive me._

They had made it to the Sabody Archipelago. The ground under his feet was soft and squishy with these huge bubbles pushing out like daisies. Now they were ready to leave Grove 41. The objectives they had were clear: find this guy who would coat their ship to travel below a lot of water and-

 _Forgive me._

-and fix the ship. Dodging troubles was there somewhere as well, but... well. Trouble was in Luffy's name and Luffy was their captain. He wondered what sorts of culinary treasures he could find here in whatever time frame they had...

He stared up towards the ship and bit at the butt of his cigarette so hard that the filter became useless. They wouldn't be gone for long, he wouldn't be gone for long. He would go with the others for now and get his job done and then he'd be back here to make sure she'd be alright. And Nami-san's treasure. He couldn't trust Usopp and Franky alone to guard and work on the woodwork at the same time. Yeah.

Shizu was enraged. It had been at least an hour by now if not longer since him and the brute had wrangled her into the tank. No one was happy about it. The she-serpent especially was spitting mad. Caimie was nervous until she got off the ship. Sanji was riddled with pure guilt and the rest of his nakama were somewhere between annoyance, concern and impatience. Except for Luffy, because Luffy will always be Luffy.

Seriously, the piece of shit had been poking the glass, making Shizu just the more pissed off than she already was.

 _Forgive me._

"Are you coming or not, Sanji-kun?"

"Yes, Nami-san," he sighed and followed after her.

 _Please, forgive me._


	77. Beautiful

He'd been sitting for who knows how long in front of the glass, staring into the brightly lit water. He knew that for as long as the outside stayed darker than the inside, she wouldn't be able to see him. Right now, he couldn't face that emotionless face that portrayed absolutely nothing at all. He knew she was angry anyway, from the rigid standing fin to the fine strands of her gills. Absently, he thought it wasn't very evolutionally smart to have them so exposed.

She finished another lap around the tank, fluidly swimming by him. Sanji would've sold his soul if it had been possible to let her out and into the sea again, but he was well aware of all the risks.

This was better for now, he convinced himself. This would only be temporary and once they were safely on the other side of the Red Line, she would go free.

Sanji just hoped and wished and prayed she wouldn't dart off forever afterwards.

The she-serpent came back to view as it went the other way. The tank was just too small for something that was used to having unlimited moving space. She wasn't a pet to be kept like this.

He could see numerous scales resting in the gravel like the white bits inside a snowglobe, waiting to get shaken around. The shedding was starting to get noticable and he couldn't help but worry that she might've been sick. There were visible bald spots on her tail already, irritated and turning pink.

The cook took a deep breath and pressed his forehead on his raised knees. It took some more minutes and willpower to make the message stick in his head that it wouldn't be for long. She would be alright. They would continue on like nothing ever happened, after they were on the other side. He would enjoy the Fishman island and the mermaids with all his heart, because why wouldn't he? They were all so beautiful, so pure. They were the angles in the deepest, darkest oceans. They were the secret everyone knew, but not really. Not everyone had seen a real life mermaid and he was going to see a _lot_ of them in the near future.

Shizu's shadow passed over him again and he looked up. She was beautiful too, in her own right. Wild and enchanting. He recalled the times they'd spent together in nightfall when he was young. Shizu had been a beautiful monster and still was. As he watched her, he fell in love again.


	78. Care for Seacreatures

**Sorry for the delay, I was in Italy for a week and it was a ton of fun.**

* * *

The Rosy Life Riders had taken it upon them to make sure that the ship would be alright in the Strawhats' absence. They'd all disappeared, scattered around the world. Their captain had been on the news just after the massive War that had happened on marine turf and they had all gotten the message. They wouldn't be coming back in some while.

The creature in the fishtank had been first overlooked because they'd all just expected it to be another fish. Then someone jumped three feet in the air and yelled.

He could still remember the way his friends and followers had stood there, staring at the creature in a sort of horrified rapture as it swam back and forth in distress. The atmosphere had been broken when the end of it's tail swiped at the glass with a violent slam. Though not as dramatic as the first time she had been spotted, everyone seemed to take a startled step away.

"That's a really odd mermaid," someone murmured from Duval's side.

"I've seen mermaids. This ain't one."

They had all seen mermaids before. She was unnaturally pale all over, like the belly of a trout (so pale he could see the blue veins on her neck leading to the _gills_ ). Black eyes without lashes (dead, soulless). Dollike nose and a pretty mouth (two rows of teeth, they later found out). Two fins on the sides of her head (humans and mermaids had ears). Anywhere he laid his eyes there were inexplicably wrong things mixed with perfectly ordinary and it was all making cold chills run down his back.

Like a wolf in a sheep's clothing.

One of his men had warily tried to suggest that they let her out. The speaker had faded out towards the end of his question, having known it was a Bad Idea the second he'd started talking.

"What are we going to do?"

The Strawhats might've had a reason to have her in the tank. It might've had something to do with how she was shedding scales like an overstressed flying fish or just because she was outright _creepy._ For all they knew, she could've been one of their nakama, trapped on the ship without knowing what had happened to her friends. This last thought had been dismissed quickly. They saw her feeding habits and decided that yes, it was better to keep her contained... at least for now.

That 'now' had stretched over the past year and she wasn't much better. For the pirates' sake they had made everything in their power without losing fingers to make her better. They knew how to tend to flying fish, knew what medicines to add in the water. They fed her what they fed to their rides and she seemed to at least tolerate it. None of them had any idea what the thing in the tank was, but thankfully it reacted well to their care. The scales grew back like pearls and it had visibly gained weight.

Somewhere around three months' mark it stopped swimming in agitated circles. It made everyone sigh in relief.

Month more on top of that and it didn't even do the minimal effort to stay off the gravel.

Yesterday it stopped eating.


	79. Gone

When the two years were up and Sanji made his way back, he felt... relaxed. There was no burning need to return to his captain anymore. It had mellowed down to "just you wait, asshole", a burning ember in his gut that would burst into a passionate flame the second he gave it air. That nearly happened when he thought about Nami-swan and Robin-chwan. He had grown so much! He couldn't wait to show off how strong he had become! Dabbing away blood from his new, fine mustache, he wondered how much they had developed in turn. Heh heh heh...

Also... he wondered how Shizu-chan was. Was she alright? Did she miss him? Did she _remember_ him?

Would she forgive him?

It had all been torture for his soul – a shitty rollercoaster of feelings. When at first he'd become coherent, he'd nearly launched himself back to Sabody Archipelago with the power of his will and worry. Luffy needed him, he needed all of his crew. Ace was his goddamn _brother_ for fuck's sake, the only family besides the marine grandfather. Oh, they had all definitely seen the lively spark in their captain's eye back in Arabasta. The brat had tried to be nonchalant, a word that wasn't even in Luffy's dictionary, while vibrating with happiness at the same time.

That man was dead and he dreaded what had become of Luffy. He'd seemed somewhat alright in the news article, but that was just a shitty little picture and an outsider's speculation in black and white.

And all that was just the first loop in the proverbial rollercoaster. Ivankov was a whole another ride with his wierd-ass crossdressers, one which he didn't want to even remember.

One night in his borrowed bed he had startled awake and went outside. At first he hadn't even been aware of the reason, not until he'd been standing by the shoreline, a plate of food in his hands. The cigarette between his lips had been unlit. The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon. There had only been one massive, amazingly delicious steak on it. Before that, he hadn't really had time to think about...

He had taken his time and come back later than most of his crew. He was the seventh. He also ended up babysitting the stupid swordsman (what had happened to his eye?) while searching for the others. He had told himself that it would be alright to put off his and Shizu-chan's reunion for a little while and he was definitely not stressed out because of it. Hell no. (Denial.)

Then the Rosy Life Riders had all kneeled and bowed in front of Luffy, gravely explaining that they hadn't had much of a choice. One or the other, neither a good thing. As they spoke, something in Sanji fell to pieces. The chill that spread down his skin left him breathless and pale, and the voices of his captain and Nami-san were drowned out by the white noise.


	80. Embers

Fire was what everyone had come to associate with Sanji. Someone could argue that it was the sea that was his forte, and they woul be right. He worked well with it, took it's treasures and turned them into delicious things, but it was fire that blazed back when you looked into him.

Luffy loved that fire. He loved all his nakama and the feeling only took root deeper and deeper as time went by. Shizu was _kind_ of nakama, but not really. He still thought she was cool.

It was hard to watch his fire go out in such a way it did – suddenly and painfully after a searing hot blaze. Luffy nearly cried out when Sanji's presence in his haki field dropped without any sort of visible reason. For a moment he thought Sanji had died, but no. It was still there. _He was still alive._ The imaginative heat was just a memory.

He had well expected Sanji to lash out at the closest person and it would've been completely okay, but the man never even questioned Duval's words.

Maybe, on some level, Sanji had already known?

He now watched the man stare out into the dark waters with his unlit cigarette, closed off and most likely numb inside. Luffy if anyone could relate. When Zoro exchanged looks with him, it was a comfort to know that this hadn't changed in the past two years, the fact that he didn't necessearily need words with his first mate.

The captain of the Strawhats made his way to Sanji's side and tried to see what he was seeing. There was a big school of green fish following their ship, completely at ease. Luffy didn't think he was looking at the green fish. He could sense some bigger deep-sea fish right outside the perimeter of light radiating from the Sunny.

"She was cool."

Sanji was silent for a long while before he spoke. "I loved her."

He nodded, the brim of his hat putting half of his face into shade. He didn't say anything.

"I _know_ ," the cook's voice almost broke. "I'm sorry, captain. Truth is, I'm a coward. I don't want to say it, but it's the truth. I loved her like nothing before and _I know_ that she was..."

"A monster," Luffy finished for him.

"Yeah," he nodded. There were three kinds of monsters in the world, afterall. Those like Luffy and Sanji, those like Blackbeard, and those like Shizu.

Usually they ate the last kind for dinner after one or two of the crew had kicked it's ass around a bit. Oh, maybe he could convince Sanji to make something awesome after their talk?

So Luffy pulled his friend to a sideways hug, startling the cook. "Don't think about the fact that she's gone. Think about the good things and how you're going to make her proud when you see her next time! You can tell her how you found the All Blue and how I became the Pirate King. She would be disappointed if you didn't, right?"

One owlish eye stared back at him before something of the old Sanji came alive. "Yeah. I'll do that. Yeah," a hesitant smile crooked up the side of his mouth. "Now get off, shitty rubber bastard."

The young man grinned with his whole heart. "Food!"

He danced away right before he could really get kicked. As the captain walked towards the others, he could hear the click of a lighter going off behind him. A nest of metaphorical embers came to life.

Much, much later, Sanji would fall in love with a mermaid princess.


End file.
